


This is not the Karma You're Looking For

by eideann



Category: Psych
Genre: Abduction, Canon Compliant, False Accusations, Gen, Injury Recovery, Non-Sexual Bondage, Parents Being Weird, Psychological Torture, Secrets, Torture, Violence in Excess of Canon-Typical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 02:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 36,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6451687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eideann/pseuds/eideann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry’s yelling, but it’s not at Shawn.<br/>Shawn is on the case, but he’s not getting paid.<br/>Gus is asserting himself with the Chief.<br/>Lassiter’s not dissing Shawn every chance he gets.<br/>And who is the babe in the short shorts and the bikini top? </p><p>Dude, this is just weird!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in late 2007/early 2008, published originally in February of 2008. It was written before Shawn's mom was more than a figure in curlers and a housecoat seen only in flashbacks. Thus, when I introduced Shawn's mom, it wasn't the woman we see in the show (whom I love, by the way). The story was too fully written and realized to change at that point, a mental health professional being likely to react differently to the events than the mom I envisioned, who is some sort of businesswoman. Because I wasn't adapting the character in the story to fit Shawn's actual mom in the show, I maintained my original name for her, which was Helen.
> 
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Santa Barbara, 1987**

_Shawn locked his bike up and walked out into the park. He was bored. His dad was at work, his mom was cleaning, and Gus was visiting his grandma this weekend. He wandered across the picnic area and past the swings and jungle gym. There were little kids playing on them._

_Maybe if he was lucky, Jennifer Styles and Steven Mason would be making out in the bushes again. He sneaked across the open area and into the mini-jungle of bushes that he and Gus played war in. It was darker and cooler under the leaves, but no one was making out. Boring. Shawn kicked a rock that bounced off through the underbrush and stopped against a foot. He looked up, startled. It was Eric Crocker, who was glaring at him._

" _Trying to hit me with a rock, Spencer?" Eric said, smacking his fist into his hand._

" _Sorry," Shawn said, and he turned to go, but Jason Johnson was behind him, and Tyler and Matt, two others of Eric's little gang were there, too. He turned back around. "Um . . . did you want something?"_

" _I got suspended from school, panty-breath," Eric said, walking towards Shawn, who was still looking for escape routes._

" _Is that a problem?" Shawn asked._

" _I know who got us in trouble, too."_

_Shawn stared at him. He knew that Eric and his friends had been spray painting words that his mom washed his mouth out for on the school last weekend, but half the school knew that. He certainly hadn't told anyone that he'd seen them. He didn't think they'd seen him._

_Someone grabbed Shawn's arms from behind. "Yeah," Tyler said. "You told your dad, and the cops called the school and our parents."_

" _I didn't tell anyone," Shawn said._

" _I know your dad called the school," Jason said, and Shawn gaped at him. His father was a cop, too, so they'd probably believe him. "My father was pissed. He said it was embarrassing to have another cop tell him I was a delinquent."_

" _I didn't tell my dad!" Shawn exclaimed. "I didn't!"_

" _By Monday, the whole school will know you're a snitch," Eric said, and then he slammed his fist into Shawn's stomach. Then the other boys got into the act and for a couple of minutes, there was a chaos of blows and pain._

_They left him in the bushes and ran off, whooping and hollering. Shawn pushed himself back to his feet and sighed. His dad was going to be pissed; he'd neither fought back nor worked it out. And now the whole school would hate him._

_Sometimes being a cop's son sucked._

* * *

**Santa Barbara, 2007**

Shawn parked his bike behind his dad's truck and took his time about getting ready to go inside. Coming here tonight was, frankly, against his better judgment, but unfortunately, he'd mentioned the invitation to Gus. Gus, being smarter than the average bear, immediately sussed out his intention to flake and had nagged and badgered him till he'd promised to go, barring any better offer. He hadn't mentioned that last part to Gus because it went without saying that a date with a pretty girl trumped dinner with Dad any day of the week.

He had, however, had singularly bad luck with the ladies all week and was thus forced to redeem his promise to Gus.

Carrying his helmet, he walked up the driveway. The driver's side door to the truck was incompletely latched, leaving the dome light on. Wondering what could have been so urgent as to cause his rulebound father to leave his truck in such a state, Shawn pushed it to and began toying with snarky comments on the old man's mental state as he continued up to the house. He tried to open the door, but found it locked. Leaning on the buzzer, Shawn actually began to worry slightly. Anything that made his father forgetful enough to leave the truck door unlatched and lock the door when he was expecting his keyless son had to be pretty serious.

After a few moments, Shawn released the pressure, puzzled and anxious. His father should have been out the door yelling at him within thirty seconds. He pounded on the door and peered in through the window. Dumping his helmet on the porch, he went around the house, peering in all the windows he passed. There was no sign of life – and no sign of dinner. When he got back to the driveway he went straight to the truck. He started to reach for the handle, but then he thought twice. Using the tail of his shirt, he popped the latch and pulled the door open by the bottom corner.

The keys fell from the floor of the truck to land on the driveway with a metallic jangle. There were two dark stains on the seat, one slightly smeared. Shawn pulled his cell phone out and dialed Lassie's number.

"What, Spencer?" Lassiter demanded, sounding pissed and irritable.

"There's blood on the seat of my dad's truck," Shawn said, staring at the stains.

Lassie didn't speak immediately. He cleared his throat. "Where's your father?" he asked, all emotion gone from his voice.

"I don't know," Shawn said. "Could you –" Words completely failed him.

"Be there in five."

After a moment, Shawn realized he was holding a dead phone to his ear. He lowered his hand, then blinked. He lifted the phone again and dialed Gus's number. His friend instantly launched into a diatribe. "Shawn, you're supposed to be at your dad's right now. Don't tell me, you've met twins and –"

"Gus." Shawn could hear the strain in his own voice.

"Shawn?" Gus suddenly sounded worried. "What's wrong?"

"I'm at my dad's, but he's not, and there's blood in his truck."

"You're kidding!"

"Would I kid about this?" Shawn demanded.

"I'll be right there."

Once again Shawn found himself holding a dead phone. He put it in his pocket and ran a hand through his hair. Where could his father be? Where . . . Shawn straightened suddenly. What if he was inside and needed help? Picking up a rock, he walked up to the door and broke the glass in the window. Inside, he made a hurried search of the house, but he didn't find his father, bleeding or not, nor did he find any sign that his father had bled inside the house.

"Spencer?!"

Shawn thumped down the stairs. "Lassie, good, you're here. Did you see the blood?"

"You didn't mention the broken window."

"I did that," Shawn said. "I thought my dad might have been inside, and the keys were evidence."

"I take it he's not."

"Probably would have been the first thing I mentioned," Shawn said, pushing past him to the driveway. "Okay, Lassiter, organize a house to house canvas, and get somebody to ask questions on the beach, too. Someone might have seen something. Jules, find out if anyone who's ever threatened my dad has been released recently from prison. We need crime scene people here fifteen minutes ago." He walked over to the truck. "No groceries, and I was expected, so I'm guessing this happened when he was leaving and some time ago, so whoever has him has had him for awhile." He shook his head and turned around to find Lassie and Jules just staring at him. "Am I speaking in tongues, people? Get cracking!"

Jules nodded earnestly and hopped to it, but Lassiter gave Shawn a sour look before he turned to give orders into his radio. Shawn didn't much care, so long as things got done. A car pulled up and the chief got out. "Good, you're here," Shawn said, walking over to her. "This situation is as follows. I arrived here approximately twenty minute ago to find the door of Dad's truck ajar. I wasn't really worried till I found the door locked and he didn't answer. I opened the truck door and found blood on the seat and the keys fell out onto the ground. I called Lassiter and Gus, and then I checked inside the house but there's no sign of him. I've got Jules researching his past cases while Lassiter's getting the house to house organized."

Chief Vick stared at him. "Mr. Spencer, we are going to do everything we can to find your father," she said gently, putting her hands on his shoulders. "You need to calm down and take a step back."

Shawn's eyes widened. "A step back from what?" he demanded. "My father is missing. I'm not 'taking a step back,' whatever that means! I –"

Chief Vick's tone grew firm. "Mr. Spencer, I sympathize with your situation, but I need you to take a deep breath and –"

A cup was thrust into his hand, a venti something from Starbucks. "Drink this," Gus ordered. Shawn shook his head and tried to hand it back.

"Mr. Guster," Chief Vick said in an undertone. "I'm trying to –"

"Trust me, Chief, he'll be easier to deal with once he's drunk this," Gus said. "Shawn, drink."

"I don't want it, Gus," Shawn protested irritably, still trying to give it back.

"Drink it, Shawn," Gus ordered.

Shawn sniffed the steam rising from the cup. "It's going to put me to sleep," he protested.

"I think you've got enough adrenaline to stave off sleep, Shawn," Gus said. "Now drink."

"What is that?" the chief asked curiously.

"Triple espresso mocha," Gus said. Shawn grimaced and took a sip. He felt the caffeine start to hit his system and sighed.

* * *

Lassiter turned away from giving instructions to Officer McNab just in time to see Spencer drinking a huge Starbucks coffee and hear Guster describe the beverage as a triple espresso. He stalked over and jerked the cup out of Spencer's grip. "Are you insane? He's already bouncing off the walls."

Guster actually glared at him. "Give him back the cup," he snapped. "He needs it."

"Spencer? Needs caffeine?"

"You don't understand, detective," Guster said, grabbing his arm and pulling him aside. "Caffeine isn't a stimulant for Shawn. It's a sedative."

Lassiter stared at him. "Seriously?"

Guster snatched the cup back. "Seriously!" He took the cup back over to Shawn. "Drink, and let the chief do her job."

Lassiter watched Guster lead Shawn over to his car and get him sitting down in the passenger seat. He turned to the chief. "McNab, Ramirez and Parks are canvassing the neighborhood, and Davis is asking questions on the beach."

"Good," she said. She glanced over at the truck where the forensics team was hard at work. She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Guster was back.

The usually mild-mannered young man was all business. "Okay, I will keep Shawn out of your hair the best I can, but I want to be kept apprised of developments."

Karen raised her eyebrows. "So, now you're giving orders?" she asked with an odd tone in her voice.

Guster drew himself up to his full height and actually managed something akin to intimidation. "Mr. Spencer is missing," he said, as if they didn't all know that. "I know, even if Shawn doesn't, that he shouldn't be involved, and I will keep him out of your way, but the only way I can do that is if you keep me up to date with what's going on. Otherwise he'll start sneaking into people's offices like he always does." Abruptly, his face got an alarmed look. "I mean . . . not that he –"

"Do you really think we don't know about that, Mr. Guster?" Karen said, and Lassiter blinked at her. He'd assumed she didn't know.

"You knew?" he exclaimed incredulously. "You knew he was sneaking around people's desks, rifling through files, slinking around the office –"

"I've caught him at my computer more than once, Carlton," the chief said calmly.

"And you're okay with that?" Lassiter asked. "You're –"

"Could we stay focused on Mr. Spencer?" Guster demanded angrily, glaring at them both equally.

"Exactly what I was about to say, Mr. Guster," she replied, giving Lassiter a hard look.

"Well, you should have said it sooner!" Guster snapped. "Keep me apprised." He stomped off to his car and climbed in next to Spencer.

"Wow, he's –" Lassiter started.

"Do you have anything to report yet?" Chief Vick asked sharply, and Lassiter snapped to attention.

"Nothing yet." She raised an eyebrow. "I'm on it, chief."

He kept an eye on Guster and Spencer as he monitored the crime scene. O'Hara had gone back to the station with the chief to get busy on research. Spencer kept arguing with Guster, but he did seem considerably less energized. Forensics finished with what they needed to do on site, then towed Henry's truck away.

Abruptly, Spencer got out of Gus's little blue joke of a car and strode towards the mailbox. He flipped open the door and peered inside. Lassiter shook his head and turned to take McNab's report. No one seemed to have seen much of anything at Henry's house since around noon, when the elder Spencer had arrived home from somewhere. They'd have to look into Henry's recent activities, which, knowing Henry, would thrill the pants off him.

Spencer – the younger Spencer – having snagged the mail out of its box, was now heading towards the house.

"What do you think you're doing, Spencer?" he asked in a loud voice. Guster was trailing his friend and expostulating quietly.

"Going into the house," Spencer said. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"It's part of the crime scene, Spencer," Lassiter replied.

"It's the house I grew up in, Lassie," Spencer snapped. "I'm going inside."

Lassiter considered opposing him, but he had to admit that Spencer knew how not to screw up a crime scene. "Let us know if you see anything out of place," he said.

Spencer opened his mouth, eyes narrowed as if he was preparing to refute something, but Lassiter's response apparently took him by surprise. "Okay, I will," he said, and then went on inside, followed closely by Guster.

Technically, he shouldn't allow either of them inside until after forensics had finished, but it wasn't as if evidence that either of the two men had been in the house would mean anything anyway. He shook his head and turned away.

* * *

Shawn walked into the house and put the mail down on the kitchen table. Two bills, a reminder postcard from the dentist and one ordinary white envelope with a stamp with a clock on it. He noticed abruptly that there was no postmark on the clock stamp. He glanced over at the desk where his dad kept his paperwork and noticed three other envelopes with clock stamps, and none of them had postmarks either. Additionally, all of them were addressed to Detective Henry Spencer.

"Shawn, what are you looking at?" Gus asked.

He shook his head slightly and ripped open the envelope that had just arrived. It was empty. "What is this?" he asked, looking at the front of it again. That was when he saw that there were very fine slits in the surface of the stamp, starting at the center of the clock and radiating perpendicular to each other, indicating three o'clock. He turned his head again and looked at the other envelopes. Each one had a nearly invisible time marked on it, each one a different hour. He glared at it. It was precisely the sort of thing he tended to see that no one else would listen to, but he had to try.

"Lassie?" he said, looking up as the detective walked in. "I need to get a closer look at these letters. I think they could be important."

Lassiter glanced over at Marshall in forensics. "If he wants," Marshall said, shrugging.

Shawn scowled. Just another sign that they didn't see as much as they thought they did. He picked up the envelopes and looked inside. They were all neatly slit open, and they were all empty. Of course, they would be if there had been letters in them and his father had taken them out. There was no way to tell what order they came in, or anything about when they came, since none of them had postmarks.

It was time for a vision, but something was holding him back. He somehow found the idea of going into vision mode both tacky and extremely challenging right now. His energy was all wrong. There was no way Lassiter would listen to him without a good performance, and not much chance that he'd listen even with one.

"Lassie, I'm seeing something here," he said quietly, and Gus looked at him like he was nuts. "It's numbers, numbers with hands."

"Numbers with hands?" Lassiter repeated incredulously.

"Numbers that click and tick and . . ." Shawn searched vainly for a rhyme. "And pick," he said in a burst of inspiration. Maybe it didn't make loads of sense, but people didn't really expect sense from a psychic, they just expected answers.

"What are you on about, Spencer?" Lassiter demanded. "Under the circumstances, I'd –"

Shawn gave Gus a desperate look. The Guster looked down at the envelopes and clearly made a leap of logic. "Clocks. Numbers with hands, numbers that tick!" He gave Shawn a private look that told him he was reaching. "What about it, Shawn?"

"Each of these stamps has been marked in some way, each one with a different time. This one came today." He picked up the one that he'd opened.

"What was in it?" Lassiter asked.

"Nothing!" Shawn said with emphasis that he hoped Lassiter would pick up on. Sometimes he got the point, sometimes he seemed to be deliberately obtuse. It was tricky to tell which to expect.

"Are you sure?"

"I can usually tell if there's something in an envelope, Lassie," Shawn said irritably. "It was empty, and I'd bet these three were, too."

"Why?"

"Well, my dad's a pretty neat guy. He tends to throw envelopes away unless they're necessary. He'll keep the letters, but he'll throw away the envelopes. He kept these envelopes, so there's got to be a reason, and that reason is a mystery."

Lassiter opened his mouth, then closed it. Shawn raised an eyebrow. "You want to say something rude, don't you?" he said, and Lassiter glared at him. "But you're refraining because of the situation. That's noble of you."

"Thanks," Lassiter said sourly.

"But I can tell it's distracting you, so . . . save them up," Shawn suggested. "Write them down. Then you can hit me with all of them _after_ we find my father."

Lassiter blinked at him. "Right. Well, Marshall, take these. See if you can get any usable and useful prints off them."

Shawn headed upstairs into his father's bedroom, keeping an eye out for anything that might be wrong. Not that he'd know much about what would be wrong in his father's room. His father hadn't really let him in his room since he'd been about ten and had grown 'too old for nightmares.'

"Shawn, I didn't think you were allowed in here," Gus said nervously from the doorway.

"Dad's not here to stop me, and I am taking full advantage of the fact," Shawn said. "Besides, there might be clues."

Gus walked into the room slowly. "What kind of clues?"

"I don't know. You go look in the bathroom."

There was silence for several moments as they looked things over. "Shawn?"

"Yeah Gus?"

"Why does your dad have a hairbrush?"

"How should I know? Wishful thinking?"

Silence again reined in the room. Shawn opened the closet and saw something he'd like to pretend he hadn't. "I don't think it's Dad's hairbrush," he said, closing the door on the sexy nightgown.

"Whose is it?" Gus asked.

"I don't know her name, but she wears a size 12."

"Oh!" There was a wealth of understanding in the tone of Gus's voice, and a strong dose of the TMI that Shawn was feeling. He walked over to the bedside table. "Shawn?" This was a new tone, one that set Shawn's hackles up.

"What?" he asked a little more sharply.

"Did you know about this?" Gus asked, coming to the bathroom door with a flat rectangular box in his hand, about four by three and a half inch thick.

"Allergy meds," Shawn suggested, though he was reasonably sure that Gus wouldn't make a fuss about a box of Benedryl.

"It's a prescription, Shawn, for Depakote," Gus replied.

Shawn shook his head. "He's old," he said uneasily, not sure he wanted to know what it was. "Old people take pills."

"It's Depakote," Gus repeated, as though that meant something. There was a pregnant pause.

"You might as well say it's dandelion fluff," Shawn said. "What does that mean, Gus?"

"It's an anti-seizure medication, Shawn," Gus said. "It means your dad has seizures."

"What? My dad does not have seizures," Shawn replied. "Maybe that belongs to his lady friend."

"Unless her name is Henry Spencer, it doesn't."

Shawn marched over and snatched the box out of Gus's hand. The prescription tag did say "Henry Spencer," and it also said, "Take every six hours to prevent seizures."

"Somehow I don't think whoever kidnapped my father took his medication with him," Shawn said anxiously.

"This is evidence that they didn't, I'd say."

Shawn shook his head. "Dude, my dad does not have seizures!"

Gus glared at him. "Yeah, well, your dad doesn't have seizures because of this!" he retorted, grabbing the box back and shaking it in Shawn's face.

"Fine! Whatever! It's not like it matters now!"

"This says he should take it every six hours," Gus exclaimed. "We have no way of knowing when he took some last. He could be having a seizure right –"

Shawn clapped his hands over his ears. "La la la la la!" he chanted. "Quit it, Gus!"

"Shawn, this could be important. He –"

"And just what do you want me to do about it?" Shawn demanded.

"I think we need to have some with us, just in case he needs it right away when we find him," Gus said.

"Fine!" Shawn snatched the box, opened it and snagged out one of the foil sheets, ripped a couple of blisters off and stuffed them in his pocket, then shoved the box back to Gus. "Satisfied?" he demanded, but he didn't wait for Gus's response, stomping off downstairs. He had to find something to do before he went nuts. He paced around the kitchen, trying to figure out what his next step should be. He vaguely saw Gus come downstairs and start talking intently to Lassiter.

He needed to get to the police station. He strode out of the house, snatching up his helmet from the porch. He was just settling it on his head when he heard two voices from the front door.

"Shawn, where are you going?"

"Spencer, what do you think you're doing?"

Shawn ignored them both. He climbed onto his bike, turned it on and left before they even got across the yard.

* * *

Lassiter growled and pulled out his phone. Dialing the chief's number, he waited for her to answer. "Yes, Detective Lassiter?" she said. "Any news?"

"Nothing substantive. I just thought you should know that Spencer's taken off on his motorcycle, and I think the caffeine might have worn off."

"On his motorcycle?" she repeated. "I thought Mr. Guster was keeping an eye on him."

"Guster has . . . annoyed him."

"In what way?"

Lassiter sighed, looking at the box of pills Guster had given him. "Apparently, Mr. Spencer senior has some kind of a seizure disorder," he said.

"What?" Lassiter sighed, he'd been hoping that the chief was already in the know on this.

"Guster found the medication in his bathroom, and he seems to be concerned that it could be dangerous for Spencer not to have it."

"How often is he supposed to take it?"

Lassiter grimaced. "Every six hours, and there's no way to know when he took it last."

"Aw, hell," she muttered. "All right, what is it? I want to make sure we have some on hand."

He read off the name of the medication and the prescription number, then put the box in his pocket. He disconnected, then turned to Guster. "The chief will make sure we can take care of him if he needs it when we find him," he said. "Where do you think Spencer went?"

Guster shook his head. "Not sure, but I'm going to the station. He'll go there sooner or later."

Lassiter nodded, then watched Guster leave. This was a mess. Shawn Spencer was the biggest pain in the ass the department had, but Henry Spencer had been an exceptional police officer, one of Santa Barbara's own.

The small part of him that recognized the help the 'psychic' Spencer had provided in the past also knew that they might not be able to count on that help this time. It would be a wonder if something like this _didn't_ throw Spencer off his game.

He went back into the house to continue supervising the forensics detail.

* * *

Shawn strode into the police station, straight up to Juliet's desk. "Got anything for me?"

"Shawn, I –" Jules started, but the chief's voice came from behind him.

"Mr. Spencer, please come into my office."

Shawn scanned the files that were open on Juliet's desk, and glanced at what was visible on her computer desktop. A few things leapt out at him, but he was going to have to store it away for later with Chief Vick waiting in her doorway. The number of times he'd yearned to be invited into that office . . . and now all he wanted to do was hang out next to Juliet and watch her fact-finding.

Reluctantly, he walked into Chief Vick's office and let her close the door behind him. She turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "I know you want to help, Shawn," she said gently. "But you're too close to this."

He pulled away. "I've already found evidence that was missed by your crack forensics team," he said. "I can't take a step back and . . . whatever. I can't."

Chief Vick sighed. She turned towards her desk and picked up a cup. "Here, have some coffee," she said. "Sit down." Shawn shook his head, but her gaze grew more steely. Jaw tight, he took the cup and sat down. She sat down behind her desk. "I'd be glad of any insights or observations you can provide, Mr. Spencer, but I can't have you in the field on this one."

"That's nuts!" Shawn protested. "Can't you see that being close to the situation is actually a benefit to a psychic?"

She took a deep breath. "Mr. Spencer, you're not psychic."

"I –" he started to expostulate, but something in her eyes stopped him.

"You're not psychic and we both know it," she said softly.

Shawn blinked at her. "What do you mean, you know it?"

"I've known all along," she said.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because having your father kidnapped will not tend to make you think more clearly, whatever it might do for a psychic," she said. Shawn scowled down at his coffee. "I'm sorry, Mr. Spencer, but if the situation was reversed, I wouldn't permit your father to participate in the investigation either."

Shawn shook his head. "Look, I can't just do nothing," he said.

"Drink your coffee."

"Can I at least look over the files that Jules is finding? Maybe I'll spot something that connects."

"You've got to make me a promise, Mr. Spencer, or I will handcuff you to a desk," she said, and Shawn blinked. "You've got to promise not to go haring off after something without checking it with us."

Shawn counted the loopholes in that promise in a second and nodded. "Yes, chief," he said meekly. "I agree –"

"I also need you to promise not to leave the building without my permission," she said. "Not to get fresh air, not to get food, not at all."

Shawn stared at her. "What if there's a fire?" he protested.

"I'll come get you," she said.

"That's harsh."

"That's the way it is, Mr. Spencer."

He sighed. "Okay, I promise. So, I can go watch Jules now?"

She nodded dubiously and Shawn went out, snagged a chair, and sat down next to Jules at her desk. "What do we have so far, Detective O'Hara?" he asked solemnly.

"Shawn, I'm not sure –" She paused, and Shawn could see that Chief Vick had caught her eye. "Oh, okay. Well, here's what I've found . . ."

They started making lists of people who had potential motives, but Shawn didn't see anything that leapt out at him. Names and statistics blurred past him, and Shawn only looked up when Gus came striding in. "Shawn, you're here," he said. "Thank heaven."

"Where did you think I'd gone, Gus?" Shawn asked, deciding to magnanimously ignore Gus's earlier perfidy.

"Well, I knew you'd wind up here, wherever you went in the meantime," Gus said, walking up to stand in front of Juliet's desk. "You've got Chief Vick's permission to be doing this?" he asked, gesturing at the papers he'd been going through.

Shawn hadn't paused in his work, so when he flipped yet another page, he stared in shock and failed to answer Gus's question. "Who is this?" he asked instead.

"Who is who?" Juliet asked.

"Who is this?" Shawn demanded, holding out the file.

"That's Robert Durnstable," she said. "Shawn, it's labeled."

"No, not him," he protested, freeing the photograph from the file. "Her. This chick in the background. Who is she?"

"I don't know," Juliet said. "Why?"

"I've seen her, several times, on Dad's stretch of beach," he said. Juliet turned to her computer to see if she could find out more information, and Shawn turned to the rest of the file. It ended ignominiously with a death certificate. The guy had been stabbed to death in prison.

"It looks like it's his mother, Sonja Durnstable," Jules said.

"Where does she live?"

"This address is in San Francisco, but it's from a couple of years ago," Juliet said. "But you say she's been spending time around your father's house?"

"According to my father, she's been sunning herself there at least two or three days every week," he said.

"Your father noticed her?"

"Yeah, he said she was cute," Shawn said slowly. "He was thinking of asking her out since she always showed up alone, and, I have to say, she is kind of hot." He noticed both of them giving him funny looks. "For an old chick," he amplified.

Gus grabbed the picture. "In no way is this woman hot, Shawn," he said, looking at it.

"I know," he said defensively. "But she doesn't look like that now. For one thing, she's lost weight, and I think she might have dyed her hair. And she's kind of tan and . . . stacked. And she just has this way of walking . . ." Shawn shrugged. "She walks really well, especially in sand."

"We should look into her current whereabouts," Juliet said. "Are you sure it's her, though?" she asked. "You said she doesn't look the same."

Shawn grimaced. "Yes, I'm sure it's her," he said.

"Okay," she said with a smile. Turning her head, she called, "Chief, I think we may have something." Shawn looked up. He hadn't realized that the chief was passing by. His powers of observation were clearly slipping.

"What have you found?" she asked.

"This woman has been hanging around Mr. Spencer's house," Juliet said. "Shawn says he's seen her there several times."

"Motive?"

"Her son was arrested by Detective Spencer in 2000 for the rape of a fourteen-year-old girl," Jules said, flipping through screens on her computer. "Convicted in 2001 and died three months ago in prison."

"Okay, let's find out where she is now."

Juliet nodded, but her hands were busy on the keyboard. "Here's her driver's license information," she said. "Issued four months ago, still with an address in San Francisco."  
Shawn looked over her shoulder and saw the woman who hung out on his father's beach. "That's her," he said.

"Okay, I can see how you'd say she was hot," Gus said.

"This has got to be more than a coincidence," Shawn said. Chief Vick reached over and took the case file out of Shawn's hands. "Don't you think?" he asked her.

"It certainly worth looking into," Vick said. "I remember this case. Durnstable was seventeen, but it was a particularly vicious rape so he was tried as an adult. Despite the overwhelming physical evidence, his mother insisted that we framed him."

"So, her son's dead, and now she has my dad," Shawn said flatly. If that was the case, the prognosis wasn't good.

"If it's her," Jules said reassuringly. Shawn didn't particularly feel reassured.

He shook his head. "Even if it's not her, anyone who grabbed my dad for a reason like this . . ." Vick's expression had gone all soft and sympathetic suddenly, and he didn't want it. "What now?"

"Keep looking at files. We've got her address, her name and her photo, we're going to see what we can find out, but we can't ignore the possibility that she isn't our suspect."

Shawn watched, frustrated, as Chief Vick issued orders that sent people out to look. He started flipping through files again, irritated. Now he didn't even have Juliet's company. She was off investigating, and he hadn't been given permission to leave the building. Gus went off with Chief Vick, Shawn wasn't sure where. He was completely alone.

Okay, he was in a police station full of cops, but no one was talking to him.

On the other hand, he had free access to a police computer. He just had to keep it active enough that it wouldn't go to sleep and require Juliet's password. He turned towards it, but nothing came. He just stared at the screen where Sonja Durnstable's face still took pride of place and his mind went blank. He closed the image, not wanting to look at it any longer, but he still couldn't think past her. They could look for other suspects, but he couldn't think of any other reason why that woman would spend that much time around his father's house.

He had to keep the computer from going to sleep, and staring wasn't going to do that. He called up solitaire and started playing. And then he realized that there was something else he should do. Taking a deep breath, he picked up the phone and dialed. "Hi, Mom?"

"Shawn, I really can't talk now. I've got people over."

Shawn grimaced. "It's important, Mom."

"What is it? Did you have another motorcycle accident? It was great hearing about that from your father, by the way."

"That was over a year ago," Shawn protested. "And no, I haven't had an accident. It's Dad."

He could hear the sigh. "Shawn, I can't referee between you and your father any more," she said. "You'll have to work it out –"

"When have I asked you to referee?" Shawn demanded. "Don't answer that. It's not anything like that. Dad . . . Dad's been kidnapped."

"What?" she exclaimed, and Shawn grimaced. "What do you mean?"

"I think it's some wacko chick whose son he arrested. Anyway, I got to his place for dinner and there was blood on the seat of the truck."

"Oh my God, Shawn, are you okay?"

"I wasn't there, Mom, I just found the blood."

"That had to be very upsetting," she said.

Shawn shrugged, not wanting to address that. "Um . . . Mom, do you know anything about Dad having seizures?"

"Sure," she said, and Shawn ground his teeth. "I kept telling him he should tell you in case something ever came up. I can't be much help from New York, after all." She paused. "I take it he didn't?"

"No. Gus found his medication when we were looking over the house for evidence." Shawn shook his head. He couldn't believe this. "How long?"

"Oh, years," she replied. "Since before he left the force."

Shawn blinked. "Great. Well, thanks for telling me. I'll keep you posted."

"Do you want me to come out?"

Shawn shook his head automatically. "Not unless you feel a need to, I mean . . . it's not like you . . . I mean, I'm sure . . ." Usually his sentences flowed better than this. "I don't –"

"Is Gus around?"

"Yeah, he's . . . he's actually right here," Shawn said, looking up to see Gus hovering a few feet away. "The Chief has detailed him to keep an eye on me, I think."

"Good. I'll be there tomorrow." She hung up, leaving Shawn with the option of accepting it or of trying to call her back and convince her to stay away. He took the path of least effort. After all, even if he argued till he was blue in the face, she'd probably come anyway.

"Your mom?" Gus asked.

"Yeah," Shawn said. He turned back to Juliet's computer. "I'm going to see if I can get some work done."

"Okay." Gus hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat. "The Chief wants me to see if I can get hold of some Depakote so that it's available."

"Dad's going to shoot you, you know," Shawn said. "He didn't even tell me. If you go telling everyone he's going to have a fit."

"So you believe me now?" Gus asked.

"Mom knew," Shawn said. "Go . . . work . . . whatever."

Gus went to a nearby desk and started making some calls. Shawn managed to force himself to do as the chief had asked, though he couldn't help regarding it as make-work. He continued going through the files the file clerks delivered, kept adding to the list that he and Jules had started. As the list got longer, he got more and more freaked. How the hell many people could there be who had a reason to want his father dead? That was what was at stake here, he knew. More than likely, his father was already dead in a ditch somewhere. Someone who kidnapped him for revenge had no real reason to keep him alive, and far more reason to kill him quickly before they were caught.

After awhile, he had trouble keeping still despite the way Gus was plying him with coffee. Finally, after Gus had gone off to some pharmacy to pick up a supply of Depakote, Chief Vick came over to where Shawn was pacing back and forth, tapping the spacebar on Juliet's keyboard at the end of every circuit to keep the computer awake. She caught his arm and he stopped, looking down at her. "Mr. Spencer, I think you should go home," she said.

"Go home and do what?" Shawn asked. "Take a nap while whoever grabbed my father gets further away?" Damn it, he wasn't even thinking in terms of them having him anymore.

"I have every available detective working on this, you know that," she said. "And you'll come to it fresher in the morning for a good night's sleep."

Shawn grimaced. "So, I take it I have your permission to leave the building?"

"Yes, but I'm going to have McNab give you a lift home," she said. "And someone will come by to pick you up. Just give us a call in the morning."

"I've got my bike," Shawn said.

"It's staying here," she replied firmly. "I don't want you out on a motorcycle with your thinking impaired, and I'm standing in loco parentis at the moment."

"No, you're not," he said, giving her a very dry look.

"What do you mean?"

"You haven't called it a death trap or demanded to be taken off my emergency contact list," Shawn replied and her eyes widened at his tone. He shook his head. "If you get anything, anything at all, I don't care what time it is –"

"Someone will come and get you, Mr. Spencer, I promise." Shawn nodded. She squeezed his shoulder. "Good night."

Shawn went with McNab, mostly because he wasn't achieving anything, and because he had a sneaking suspicion that the chief might lock him out of the case altogether if he didn't do what she told him. Ordinarily, he'd risk it and try to cajole her later, but the stakes were too high. If he screwed the pooch on this one, he wasn't just out of a job.

When they got out to McNab's cruiser, Shawn saw that Chief Vick hadn't counted on his promise to make him stay put. There were two cruisers blocking him in, McNab's was one of them. The fact that he could come up with nothing suitably snarky to say just fueled the anger that had been building all evening – he glanced at his watch – and into the early morning.

"Sorry, Shawn," McNab said. "It was orders." Shawn just nodded and climbed in when McNab unlocked the door. They were both silent for a couple of minutes while McNab got situated in the crowded cab. Once they were underway, McNab said, "We will find him, Shawn. We will."

If it had been Lassiter sitting in the driver's seat, or even Jules, Shawn might have replied, but all the thoughts in his head were a little too harsh to unleash on McNab.

The drive home was uneventful. Shawn got out of the cruiser and gave McNab a wave. He went upstairs to his apartment and unlocked the door. Something niggled in his brain as he stepped inside, but he couldn't quite place it. He reached out to flip the light on and it hit him. He'd left the kitchen light on, but it was off now. Then his hand hit the already flipped switch.

"Man, I thought those bulbs were supposed to last like five years or something," he muttered irritably, stepping forward into darkness, leaving the door open so he'd have the light from the hallway to guide him. It started to swing shut on its own, but Shawn wasn't worried. His hand was mere inches away from the next light switch. The door fell shut but didn't latch.

He felt more than heard the movement behind him, and he turned, ducking just enough that the blow glanced off the top of his head. He still fell with a crash, the side of his head smashing into the cupboard.

He lay stunned – in more ways than one. Then he felt a pinprick in his ass and a burning sensation in the muscle as something was injected. The world grew distant, then went away altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who may not be sure or who may not get the reference, caffeine does not act as a stimulant for people with ADD or ADHD. It is, actually, a commonly used means of identifying people with those conditions. If a rambunctious child suddenly calms down and is able to focus after a soda with caffeine in it, it's a sure sign that ADD or ADHD plays some part in their behavior. And, to anyone inclined to take issue with this, I put forward the fact that I have been diagnosed with ADD, and caffeine has never had a stimulant effect on me. Drove me nuts in college.


	2. Chapter 2

Lassiter couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Why didn't you tell us this yesterday?" he asked, trying to keep his tone even.

Evidently he failed because Miss Alligeri started looking annoyed. "I didn't know it till I was making my daughter breakfast this morning, and she started telling me about the 'mean lady who hurt Henry,'" she replied, gesturing towards the small child who was being minded by Officer McNab. "I had to skip out on work for this, you know."

"Of course," O'Hara said when Lassiter didn't immediately speak. He wasn't able. Their eyewitness was in preschool? "And we appreciate it," she added. "Now, can you tell me exactly what she said?"

"Why not get it straight from the horse's mouth?" Miss Alligeri suggested, and she went to get the little girl.

O'Hara abruptly turned and walked into the chief's office, leaving Lassiter alone to greet the small . . . person. "This is my daughter Cindy."

Carlton forced a smile. "Hello Cindy, my name is Detective Lassiter."

The infant gazed up at him with wide brown eyes. "Like Sherlock?" she asked.

"Yes, like Sherlock," Lassiter said.

O'Hara came back. "We're going to have our conversation in the chief's office," she said. Then she squatted down. "Hi, I'm Juliet, what's your name?"

The little imp edged around and hid behind her mother, and nothing Juliet could do would get her to budge. "She was talking to Detective Lassiter," Miss Alligeri said dubiously, and Lassiter waved negating hands at her.

"She was, wasn't she?" O'Hara said. "Detective?"

Lassiter grimaced and pasted the smile back on. "Cindy?" he said, and she emerged shyly with a little grin. "Will you come over here and talk to me?"

"Okay," she said, her eyes bright. She gave him her hand and he led her into the chief's office. Her mother followed and sat down with her on the sofa. Lassiter pulled up a chair.

"Cindy, can you tell me what happened to Henry?"

"The mean lady hurt him," she said matter-of-factly.

"How did she hurt him?"

"She hit him with his truck," Cindy said earnestly.

"She . . ." Lassiter paused, blinking. "How did she do that?"

"She shut the door with his head inside," she said. "He yelled."

"Did anything happen after that?"

"She put him in the car and drove away."

"She put him in the car?" Lassiter repeated.

"My mom's single," Cindy said abruptly. "Are you single?"  
Lassiter found himself incapable of speaking. Miss Alligeri was not similarly handicapped. "Cindy, just answer the nice man's questions."

"I am," the little girl said with a dimple.

Miss Alligeri gave Lassiter an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I don't know what's gotten into her."

"Cindy?" Lassiter said, finally regaining control of his voice. "Can you tell me what the 'mean lady' looks like?"

"A lady," Cindy said very helpfully. Lassiter ground his teeth. Frightening this witness would not be useful.

"Is she a tall lady?" he asked, forcing patience.

"I dunnoe," she said, shrugging.

"Well, did you see her standing next to Henry?" Cindy nodded. "Was she as tall as him?" She shook her head. "Was she as tall as his shoulder?" Cindy shrugged. This was going nowhere. Time for a new tactic. "Have you ever seen the mean lady before?"

Cindy nodded. "Uh huh, she's on the beach all the time." Lassiter glanced up and behind him to where the chief and O'Hara were standing. That was certainly suggestive. "Mama says she's a . . . a bleached blond bimbo."

Lassiter looked up at Miss Alligeri whose eyes were wide. She turned to her daughter. "Do you mean the one you said smells like grandma?" Cindy nodded. "She hit Henry?"

"She was mean!" Cindy affirmed angrily. "She hit him and then stuck something in his butt."

"She stuck something in his butt?" Chief Vick repeated, and Cindy nodded again.

"Like Aunt Marlene," she added, looking up at her mother.

Everyone turned to Miss Alligeri who seemed very taken aback. "Oh, I . . . Marlene, my sister has diabetes."

"She pokes herself all the time," Cindy said confidentially to Lassiter. "She puts in sullen."

"Insulin, Cindy. It's insulin."

"So she injected him?" O'Hara asked.

Cindy nodded. "Then she put him in her car and drove away."

Lassiter cleared his throat. "Cindy, will you go with Detective O'Hara for a few minutes?"

"No," Cindy said firmly.

He considered the matter momentarily. "What about Officer McNab?"

Cindy straightened slightly, looking out the doorway. "Will he give me a pony ride?" she asked.

"Of course he will," Lassiter said, beckoning to McNab. "O'Hara, will you bring back the photo lineup we put together?" The exchange was made, and Lassiter held out the photo lineup to Cindy's mother. "Do you recognize any of these women as the 'mean lady'?" he asked.

Miss Alligeri looked carefully at the photos for a long moment. "I think . . . I'm not sure, but I think it's her," she said, pointing to Sonja Durnstable's driver's license picture.

"Thank you very much, Miss Alligeri," Lassiter said. "You and your daughter have been very helpful. In fact . . . give me just a moment." He walked over to where they kept some kid-oriented stuff and dug in the drawer till he had what he wanted. Miss Alligeri had claimed her child from McNab, so he went over to them. "Miss Cynthia Alligeri, I would like to present you with a police badge for your help today."

"Really?" She took the little plastic thing with an awed expression.

"I name you honorary Detective Alligeri."

The little girl left with her mother in transports of excitement, and Lassiter watched her go fondly. Chief Vick walked up beside him. "Well, that settles that," she said. "There's no doubt about it being Durnstable now."

"Lassiter?" They both turned to find O'Hara bearing down on them. "I had just located this when they got here. I've already sent a warrant application to the DA." She handed them a printout.

"Who is Sonja Fellowes?" Lassiter asked.

* * *

Shawn awoke to the faint scent of lavender. He smiled and took a deep breath. "Holly . . ." he murmured.

"Shawn!" The bellow was loud, angry and definitely male.

Shawn's head came up and he opened his eyes with a hiss. His head ached, his shoulders weren't altogether happy, and his wrists were handcuffed together. And his father was facing him not ten feet away, tied into a chair, his arms cuffed behind him, his feet tied to some kind of bracket in the floor. Shawn noticed several of them arising out of the concrete around the warehouse floor.

So far this day sucked, except for one thing . . .

"Dad! You're alive!" Shawn exclaimed.

"Well done, Shawn," his father growled. "How'd you get yourself caught? Were you sneaking around playing at police work again?"

Shawn raised his cuffed hands to his forehead and rubbed it. "Actually, no, I was following the chief's instructions. Our mutual friend was waiting in my apartment."

"How'd she get you?" his father asked.

"She did something to my kitchen light, waited till I was off balance in the dark and hit me."

"It took two blows, Henry," said a voice Shawn had never heard before. "He did better than you did."

"Technically that was two blows," Henry said. "One from the door and one from the door frame."

"What is this, a competition?" Shawn demanded.

"Everything's a competition to your father," the woman said. She still hadn't come into view. "Which is why he felt compelled to cheat." Henry's expression tightened, but he didn't speak.

"Cheat?" Shawn repeated. "What do you mean?"

Their captor walked around to where Shawn could see her. "Hello, Shawn. I should introduce myself. I'm –"

"Sonja Durnstable," he said, nodding. "Yeah, I know. You look loads better than you did seven years ago. You've been working out, haven't you?"

"Shawn?!" his father exclaimed. "What are –"

"She has," Shawn said, glaring at his father to get him to shut up. Flirting and making friends was his area, not his father's. "Before she looked kind of frumpy and now . . . frankly, you're pretty hot."

Sonja smiled. "Thank you, Shawn. I already know your father agrees with you." She glanced over at Henry with a knowing smile. "His interest made catching him much easier."

Shawn blinked at her. "Please tell me you're not the size 12," he said.

"What?" She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

"Never mind," Shawn said, relieved. His father looked furious, but furious was still alive. "Look, I –"

There was a beeping sound, like a microwave, and she said, "Excuse me, I'd better go get that."

Shawn stared at her as she left. They appeared to be in a warehouse, and he thought she was going through the door into an office area. "What the hell is going on here?" Shawn hissed, turning back.

His father shook his head. "I'm not really sure now," he said. "She started out trying to kill me – got pretty close, I think, but then she suddenly stopped and said it didn't make sense."

Shawn tried to figure out if he could get out of his chair, but he was tied in such away that he couldn't begin to reach the knots. He kicked his chair over next to his father's. "Can you reach the knots?" he asked.

After some futile leaning and twisting, Henry shook his head. "No, I can't, damn it. What happened? Did you get too close to her, or something?"

"Can you reach my pocket?" Shawn asked urgently.

"Yeah, that I can reach, but somehow I think she'd have found a knife or handcuff keys."

"Just dig in there," Shawn said, leaning as close as he could. "I brought your medication."

"My what?"

"Your medication. Your seizure medication." Henry froze for a moment, then resumed digging. "Great call on not telling me, by the way."

"You didn't need to know," Henry said, but he dug in Shawn's pocket and pulled the foil packet out.

Shawn scowled. "Oh yeah, because finding out when I knew someone had kidnapped you was way better than having you tell me over dinner."

"Not now, Shawn," his father growled. "And honestly, I'm not sure what good this is going to do me with my hands behind my back."

Shawn took the packet from his father's hand, popped a pill out and shifted around in front of him. "Here, take it," he said, holding the pill up to his father's lips.

"I am not taking it like this," Henry snarled.

"Do you _want_ to have a seizure?" Shawn asked angrily. "Just take it, Dad." Glaring at the world in general, Henry reached forward and lipped the pill off Shawn's hands, and Shawn quickly tucked the packet into his shirt pocket. "And no, I didn't get too close to her. I recognized her from a photograph in her son's file, but I spent most of last night at the police station, so I didn't get anywhere near her."

His father stared at him for a long moment, the color draining from his face. "You mean she went after you specifically?" he asked, sounding appalled.

"Yeah, Dad," Shawn said impatiently. "It looks like it. We need to work out an escape plan."

"Oh God," Henry said. "Oh God, oh God."

Shawn shook his head irritably. "I don't think praying is an adequate escape plan, Dad," he said.

"Shawn, don't you understand? She didn't kill me, she doesn't think it makes sense."

"I heard you the first time, and that doesn't –"

"She blames me for the death of her son. Don't you see what that means?"

Shawn nodded. "She's a psycho bitch with severe delusions. How does that get us out of here?"

"She blames me for the death of her son, and she's gone out of her way to grab my son. Shawn, this isn't good."

Shawn gave him an exasperated glare. "No, Dad, believe it or not, I had picked up on the fact that getting knocked out and waking up here tied to a chair with my father, who is also tied to a chair, was not exactly on the list of 'good things that can happen.' Can we focus on something a little more productive?"

His father was shaking his head. "Don't you see it, Shawn?" He seemed on the verge of panic, which wasn't doing wonders for Shawn's attempts to keep his own cool.

"Yes, Dad, I see it, but I don't think saying it out loud will help enormously, so let's avoid it, okay?"

"What are you two up to?" Sonja asked from the doorway. "I think I'm going to have to work it so that you stay separated."

Shawn stared at the reasonably trim, athletic older woman he'd actually encouraged his father to ask out. The crazed psychotic bitch smiled at them, holding what looked like a bag of microwave popcorn in her hands. She looked like anyone's mother, but her son was dead and she wanted revenge.

The day was just not looking good.

* * *

Lassiter sat at his desk making sure they had all the documents they would need for the search of Sonja Durnstable's local apartment. She'd been staying in Santa Barbara for the last two months, renting an apartment under her maiden name, Sonja Fellowes. O'Hara was in talking to the chief, and Guster was thanking his doctor friend who had given them all a quick briefing on how to handle it if Spencer Sr. had a seizure during the rescue.

He looked around. Where the hell was Spencer? When he was involved in a case, it was usually harder to keep him from being underfoot. He'd have expected to find him everywhere he turned given the nature of this case. It was nearly nine in the morning, and Lassiter really hadn't thought the man would be sleeping in with his father missing.

An unfamiliar woman walked onto the squadroom floor, and he was startled to see that no one was challenging her. She wore a dignified suit with sensible heels, and was of middling height with brown hair and eyes and a maternal figure. Her air of certainty clearly had an effect on the younger officers, but the older men and women shouldn't be looking like they didn't think they should challenge her as she made her way straight for the chief's office.

Shaking his head and mentally preparing a memo with regard to security and procedure, he rose and went to intercept her. She came to a stop, giving him a mild glare as he spoke. "Hello, ma'am, can I help you?"

"You are?" she asked.

"Detective Carlton Lassiter," he said. "Ma'am, you really should check in at the front desk."

She glanced that way and shook her head. "I'll talk to Judith Allen later, young man. Right now, I want to see Shawn Spencer."

"I'm afraid Mr. Spencer isn't here right now," he said. "Is this –"

"Then I'd like to speak with Karen Butler," she said immediately, fixing him with a glare which faded slightly into confusion. "Or . . . I don't remember her married name, but I understand she's chief now."

"The chief is in a meeting just at the moment," Lassiter said uneasily. Clearly this woman had been here before, though he was sure he'd never met her. She seemed oddly familiar, something about the set of her jaw and the shape of her eyes, but he couldn't quite place it. He gave her his best authoritative look. "Maybe I can help you, ma'am. What's this about?"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I've heard differing accounts of you, Detective Lassiter," she said, confirming his impression that she was familiar with the department. "I recommend that you confirm the better ones. I need to see the chief of police." She blinked, and then her eyes grew suddenly very intent in a way that seemed exceptionally familiar. "Unless you've found Henry Spencer," she said. "Have you?"

Lassiter cleared his throat. Maybe he'd better hand her off to the chief. "I'm sorry, ma'am, can I ask who you –"

"Mrs. Spencer!" Guster had emerged from the conference room and he looked stunned. "I wasn't expecting you. Shawn didn't say anything."

She pursed her lips. "He knew I was coming," she said worriedly as Lassiter came to the realization that she looked familiar because she looked like Shawn Spencer. Or Spencer looked like her . . . he controlled his wandering thoughts. It had to be Spencer's mother, Henry's ex-wife. "We spoke about it last night, and I left him a voice mail telling him my flight number and arrival time." She shook her head. "I would have expected you at the very least."

"I would have been there if I'd known, Mrs. Spencer," Guster said earnestly. "I swear."

"Well, I forgot to bring his address with me. I've tried both his phones, but he's not answering either, and since I haven't been to his new apartment, I figured I'd try here. I saw his motorcycle outside, so I assumed . . ."

"He hasn't come in, ma'am, no," Lassiter said.

She gave him an impatient look. "Where is Karen? The chief? I can't believe I can't remember her last name, but –"

"Chief Vick," Guster said. "I'll go –" He started to turn, but his errand was made unnecessary when the chief emerged with O'Hara. Guster stepped aside and pulled out his phone.

"Helen," Chief Vick said as she crossed the squadroom hastily. "Please, come into my office. I'll –"

"I'm worried about Shawn," Mrs. Spencer said. "I can't get hold of him. Has anyone checked on him this –"

"Neither can I," Guster said suddenly, his phone held to his ear. "He's not answering."

"I sent Shawn home early this morning, Helen," Karen said. "He was exhausted and full of coffee, so maybe he's just sleeping."

Mrs. Spencer shook her head, looking worried. "When he's anxious about something, he burns caffeine off quickly. He should be here, pounding on desks." She turned to Guster. "Gus, will you give me a lift to his apartment?"

"Of course, Mrs. Spencer," Guster said. "I think you're right. We should check on him."

"We'll come with you," O'Hara said, and Lassiter gave her an incredulous look. "The chief promised to let him know if anything came up, and I think that ID counts. Besides, Durnstable's apartment isn't far away."

The chief nodded. "All right. Keep me posted."

Lassiter nodded. Mrs. Spencer and Chief Vick took leave of each other and he and O'Hara followed Guster to Spencer's apartment building. They met in the parking lot and went up to the door where Helen Spencer knocked loudly. There was no answer.

Mrs. Spencer turned to Guster impatiently. "Gus, don't you have a key?"

"I used to," Guster said. "He took it away after I walked in on him . . . I mean, I interrupted . . ." He trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

"Of course," she said with an explosive sigh. "Well, that's easily solved," she said, looking down the hallway. Lassiter followed her gaze and saw a man with keys hanging off his heavily burdened belt. "Excuse me?" she called, and the man walked towards them. "Excuse me, are you the super?" she asked.

"I'm the manager," he said. "What do you want?"

"This is my son's apartment, and he's expecting me. I think he may be –"

"You're not his mother," the manager said, giving her a hard look. "His mother came by yesterday, and I let her in. A blond woman. She didn't look a thing like –"

Lassiter exchanged worried looks with O'Hara and Guster. He pulled out his badge. "Santa Barbara PD. Open the door, now."

"Do you have a warrant?" the man asked.

"Open the door before I kick it down," Lassiter snapped, and the man complied, muttering about laws and free countries. Lassiter lost the race to be the first inside, but within moments it was clear that Spencer was not home.

"Lassiter?" O'Hara murmured while Guster and Shawn's mother were exploring the depths of the apartment. He looked over at her. Wordlessly she pointed at a dark spot on the corner of one of the cupboard doors. There was a piece of hair adhering to it, and, beneath it, several small, dark droplets masquerading in the pattern of the linoleum.

He nodded and called the chief to send a forensics team.

* * *

Sonja put her popcorn aside and walked over to them. Shawn's feet were free, so he was planning his attack, but she didn't come into reach. Instead she took hold of his rolling chair from behind and moved him back to his original position. Reaching up, she grabbed a chain with a carabiner hook on the end of it. With a great rattling and clanking, she pulled it down to hook around something on the back of Shawn's chair.

"That will do for now," she said. "I suppose I should have attached your feet while you were still unconscious, but there's no use crying over spilt milk." She ruffled Shawn's hair lightly as she walked around between them again. She took the cake for creepy. "I could wish that you'd selected another moment to illustrate your independence of movement. My popcorn's probably stone cold by now."

"Oh, that's just terrible," Shawn's dad said sarcastically. "Cold popcorn!"

A mask of rage overtook her pleasant expression and she turned towards Henry, her hand coming up like she was going to punch him.

"Come on, Dad!" Shawn exclaimed with forced nonchalance, distracting her. "Cold popcorn's the worst, right after cold nachos."

Her expression softened again, and her arm dropped to her side. "You're a sweet boy, Shawn," she said. "But the truth is, I only made it to pass the time while your father and I were waiting for you to wake up." Shawn blinked at her. On the creep-o-meter, that parental tone scored a nineteen out of ten. "It's funny how what you're waiting for always happens if you start something else." She walked a few feet away and grabbed a third chair, rolling it over so that they sat in a semi-circle. "Especially if it's something that can't be stopped. Oh well, I suppose we'd better get down to business."

"Yes, let's," Shawn said. "Look, can we three just talk this out?" he suggested. "I'm sure there's something –"

"If there were four of us, there might be something to talk about," Sonja said regretfully. "Reparations to be made for the lost years of Robbie's life, some kind of compensation . . ." She glanced over at Henry. "But Robbie's dead. Justice demands an eye for an eye . . . and a son for a son."

Her attention was wholly on his father. Shawn thought he'd better get her away from the focus of her rage if he hoped to talk sense into her. "Since I'm guessing that adoption isn't on the table, maybe I should point out that I've never hurt anyone?"

She turned towards him, a look of regretful sympathy on her face that sent chills down Shawn's spine. He was already dead to her . . . the act just hadn't taken place yet. "Robbie never hurt anyone either, Shawn," she said.

Henry snorted. "Oh no, and little Amber Thompson felt fine after he got done with her," he said dryly. Shawn glared at him. Couldn't he see what Shawn was trying to accomplish? Pissing her off more would not help.

"My Robbie never went near her," Sonja snapped.

"Well, his semen did," Shawn's father replied.

"That was planted – or faked – those tests can be jockeyed with."

"He confessed."

"You forced him."

"Right." Henry shook his head. "I asked him if he did it and he said, 'Sure I did the little bitch, she had it coming.'"

Sonja's lips were turning white with anger, and Shawn cleared his throat. "Um . . . excuse me," he said, and they both turned to look at him. "Can we get back to me?" he suggested. "Not only have I never hurt anyone, but I help people. You should take my contributions to the world into account. I'm a psychic detective."

"I know," Sonja said. "It's a shame, but it can't be helped."

"Why can't it be helped?" Shawn asked earnestly. "I mean, really, why not? Why deprive all the people I could help of the help I could provide?"

"Because justice must be served. Someone else will have to help them."

"What if I'm the only one who can?" Shawn said. "What if I'm the last hope those people have?"

"We have to believe that help will be provided, Shawn," she said with a serene expression.

"What if it's not, though?" Shawn asked earnestly. "What I do for people, it can't be –"

"I can't worry about that," she said abruptly, cutting him off. "I have to what is necessary in the service of justice." She turned away from Shawn. "You took my son away from me and put him in a terrible place where he was beaten and abused and finally killed You have to –"

"I'm sorry," Shawn's father said suddenly. Sonja stopped speaking at they both stared at Henry. Shawn was stunned by the expression on his father's face. "I'm sorry," Henry repeated. "I'm sorry your son died."

Sonja stood up slowly. "Are you admitting that Robbie was innocent?"

"Of course he is," Shawn said, hoping it was the right tack to take.

Sonja stood up and walked over to look down into Henry's face. "Are you?"

"Would that get you to let Shawn go?" Henry asked. "Would that get you to punish me, and me alone for what I did?"

She was silent for a long moment. Shawn didn't know what to say. He didn't want her to kill his father either.

"I'll give you five minutes alone together, and then it's time to start." She turned without another word and walked back toward the office.

"Start?" Shawn repeated anxiously. "What does start mean?" She didn't answer. "Honestly," Shawn called as she walked away, "would Robbie want you to do this? Do you really think Robbie would –" She closed the door behind her, and Shawn dropped all pretense. "Any thoughts on how we can get out of here, Dad?"

"I've been trying, Shawn," his father said, struggling with the ropes that bound him, but Shawn could see it was no good.

"I don't want to die. We've got to come up with something."

"You recognized her. Did you tell anyone else about her?"

"Of course," Shawn said. "Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but they wouldn't leave me alone even for five minutes."

"So they're on the trail."

"They are," Shawn said. "No way of knowing how close, unfortunately. They were still looking at other leads last I heard." He shook his head "This isn't getting us anywhere." He yanked on the chair, but the chain held him in place. "Dad, there's got to be something we can do!"

"I don't see what, kid," Henry said. He strained hard at the bindings, his face turning scarlet. "Keep doing what you're doing. Make her see you as a person."

"Trouble is, I think she already sees me as a person, she just doesn't think it matters." His father bit his lip, straining again, and Shawn shook his head. "Have you tried yelling?"

"Oh yeah," Henry said "Yelled my head off for hours and it got me nowhere."

"Damn it!" Shawn jerked forward on the chair and managed to move forward a bit, but it didn't really help. He got about a foot more chain, but that was it. This day just got better and better.

* * *

Lassiter was pissed. Some crazy woman had strolled into Spencer's apartment and taken him away with her, and no one appeared to have noticed. The blood in the apartment matched Spencer's blood type and now they had a near-hysterical mother on their hands. Not that he blamed her, but it took time, and time was what they didn't have. It didn't take much to figure out why a woman who blamed Henry for the loss of her son might have grabbed Henry's son.

"O'Hara, Guster, we need to get Mrs. Spencer back to the station."

"Right," Guster said.

"I am here, young man," Mrs. Spencer said icily. "Please do not talk about me as if I weren't."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Spencer," he said. "I –"

"Don't be sorry, be useful. Find Shawn and Henry," she snapped. "Gus, take me back to the station so that the detectives can do their jobs."

"Of course, Mrs. Spencer," Guster said.

She kept talking as they walked towards the door of the apartment, almost as if she was trying to keep her mind away from thinking too hard. "Henry was always most eloquent on the subject of families who got in the way of investigations," she said. "I don't want to –" She stopped in the middle of what she was saying at the door and turned back, fixing Lassiter with a gimlet glare. "You find my son and his father," she ordered. "Find them alive."

"Yes ma'am," Lassiter said, and they left.

"Okay," O'Hara said. "What now?" She was a little pale, but she showed no other sign of the stress she had to be feeling. Spencer was her friend as well as a demi-colleague, so Lassiter had to admire her professional aplomb.

He considered her question for a moment. They'd already examined this scene for obvious evidence. "Now we wait for forensics to get here. Once they've taken over the scene, we go on to Mrs. Durnstable's place. That has a better chance of leading to the Spencers than anything here does, I think. I just wish we knew what kind of car she's driving." Alligeri – the mother – didn't know, and all Cindy had been able to contribute was the color, blue, which didn't do much beyond eliminating the only car Durnstable had registered in her name.

O'Hara blinked then went out into the hallway. Forensics was arriving, but the younger detective seemed more interested in the apartment manager. She collared him while Lassiter briefed the forensics team on what they'd found so far and impressed upon them the seriousness of a case that involved the abduction of both a retired police officer and a police consultant. Spencer might be irritating, but he was still on the SBPD payroll, and the SBPD took care of its own.

He walked back out into the hallway to find O'Hara finishing up with the manager. She walked over to him and smiled. "She arrived in a blue PT Cruiser," she said. "He doesn't know when she left, but the vehicle was gone this morning when he checked the parking lot for vandalism."

"I don't suppose he got the license plate?" Lassiter asked as they headed for their own vehicle.

"Unfortunately, no, but that's still more than we had before."

Lassiter nodded. "Update the people who are canvassing the car rental companies," he said, and she pulled out her phone to make the call. He listened to her talk with one ear as he drove to the Manfred apartment complex.

Minimal negotiation got them inside the apartment, and Lassiter gazed in dismay at the chaos. There were papers everywhere, and all kinds of junk in boxes and on the floor. It was clear that someone had been staying here, but Lassiter wouldn't call it living.

O'Hara walked over to the door to the bedroom. "I don't like the look of this, Carlton," she said. "I don't think she's coming back. I think she's gone."

"As in she got what she came for . . ." he muttered, moving forward and flipping a page up with a pen from his pocket.

"Maybe she left something behind," O'Hara said, pulling on her gloves and starting to look through the piles of paper and boxes of junk. Lassiter followed her example, reflecting that this could take more time than the Spencers had.

After fifteen or twenty minutes of sifting, the door opened behind them. They turned in surprise to find an elderly woman peering in. "Did something happen to her?" she asked in a creaky voice. "Is Sonja all right?"

Lassiter glanced at his partner. For some reason, people seemed to find him threatening, so he delegated this kind of conversation to her whenever it seemed appropriate. O'Hara got the message and walked over to the door. Lassiter turned back to sifting, listening to the conversation as he worked.

"We're not sure where Sonja is," O'Hara said. "I'm Detective O'Hara of the Santa Barbara police. Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure, I'm Margot Thoreau. I live next door."

"How well do you know Sonja?" O'Hara asked, leading the frail old woman over to the dining room table and sitting down with her.

"Well enough," Thoreau said. "I let her borrow my car. I don't like to drive these days, and I need someone to help me run errands. She's a kind young woman, very helpful, even if she isn't the best housekeeper." This last was said with a little laugh, looking around the apartment.

"How long has she lived here?"

"Oh, she's been camping out for a few months," Thoreau said. "She has an apartment in San Francisco, and a job. She just came down here to do something for her son."

Lassiter paused and glanced over at O'Hara. Their eyes met.

"Such a nice woman," Thoreau continued. "So many people don't take time out of their own lives to help their children out."

"Her son is dead," Lassiter said sharply. "He was a convicted child molester who was stabbed to death in prison three months ago."

"Oh, that can't be!" Thoreau exclaimed, glaring incredulously at him. "She talks about Robbie all the time, tells me what he's doing and –"

"He's dead," Lassiter said firmly. "And she's a fruitcake who has abducted two men, one a retired police officer, the other a police consultant."

Thoreau blinked. "A retired police officer?" she repeated. "Would that be her friend Henry Spencer?" Lassiter swallowed. Even more confirmation, as if they needed it now. "She talks about him all the time. I thought they were dating. Are you sure you have your facts right on this, young man?"

"Quite sure," Lassiter said, keeping his cool as best he could. Yelling at little old ladies, however misguided they might be, was frowned upon. "There was a witness to the abduction of Mr. Spencer Sr." He didn't think the age of the witness would be particularly helpful, so he didn't mention it.

"It really is very serious," O'Hara said, shooting Lassiter a look that he couldn't quite interpret. "You see, she blames Henry for her son's death, and we're afraid she'll hurt either or both of them, so any help you could provide would be great."

"Of course, sweetie. What do you need?"

"Does she have your car today?"

"Oh yes, she said she had some errands to run last night that would take her a day or two."

"So, you drive a PT Cruiser?" O'Hara said, and Lassiter couldn't fault the slight incredulity in her tone.

"Now, I've never driven it, dear," Thoreau said, patting O'Hara's hand. "It was my daughter's car. She died of breast cancer three years ago, and my car wasn't nearly as nice, so I got rid of it and kept Sharon's."

"Can you tell me the license plate number?"

"I've got it next door," she said.

O'Hara went with her to get it and Lassiter kept looking through papers. He flipped a page and stared at what was beneath it. It was a printout from a real estate website with five or six listings. Industrial primarily, warehouses and the like. He riffled hastily through the rest of the stack and came up with another page of three listings. He pulled his phone out. "Chief, I think we have something worth looking into," he said. Finally, real action they could take.

* * *

"All right, I'm afraid it's time," said a soft voice from behind Shawn. He saw the look on his father's face and craned around to see. Her hair was tied back tightly now, and she was carrying a small box. As she walked over and put the box down on the chair, she said, "I'm sorry this has to involve you, Shawn. I didn't choose this. If you have to blame someone, blame your father."

"But you're the one who's deciding to do it," Shawn said. "You don't have to."

"Justice must be served, Shawn," she said, walking around behind him. She wrestled with the chain for a minute, and Shawn bided his time.

As soon as she had it loose, he lurched forward and whirled around, giving her the look that always worked to get his mom to give him what he wanted. "Really, though, how just is it to hurt someone who never did anything?" She walked towards him, and he skittered away again. "After all, you don't –"

The wheels of his chair stuck suddenly, but his momentum would not be denied. He felt the chair topple and it was like he hung there for long seconds before he landed with a crash on his side on the floor. His head thumped into the concrete on the bruise that was already there, knocking him silly for a minute. It was long enough, though. She got the chair back up, into position, and before he could pull himself together, she had his feet tied to a bracket in the floor.

"Now Shawn," she said. "If you fight it, you'll only hurt yourself more."

She reached around in front of him and hooked the carabiner around the chain between the handcuffs.

"Please don't do this!" Shawn realized that his father had been yelling all along, but that was the first sentence that had penentrated Shawn's mind and made sense. "I'll do anything you want, just stop!"

Once the carabiner was in place, Shawn felt her untie the ropes tying him into the chair. "Sonja, my mother is here in Santa Barbara," he said in a voice of forced calm. "My mother came here to be with me. Think what this will do to her."

Sonja walked away towards the wall, and Shawn couldn't tell where she was going. "Justice can be painful," she called. A moment later, Shawn had an idea of what she meant. He heard a ratcheting sound, and his hands suddenly jerked upwards. The ratcheting continued, and he found himself slowly being pulled to a standing position. She didn't stop until his arms were straight up above his head and his feet were barely on the floor.

He met his father's appalled eyes briefly, then looked over his head. He couldn't deal with that expression. "You know, Sonja, I usually get to know a girl a little better than this before I let her put me in handcuffs."

"Excuse me?" she said, sounding confused. She came around in front of him, pausing to give him a puzzled look.

"Never mind," he said with a grimace. "Look, I really think there's got to be another option. One that doesn't involve killing. Or maiming." She crossed over to the chair and reached into the box, pulling out a pair of gloves. Shawn watched her put them on with growing horror. They appeared to be studded with something chunky and metallic. "Or nasty metal gloves."

"I did it!" his father said suddenly. "I framed him. I made it all up. I . . . got someone to fake the lab results and the confession. I'm sorry."

Sonja paused and looked at him. "Very good, Henry. Excellent breakthrough, but it doesn't remove the need for justice." She turned and slammed a fist into Shawn's ribs. Pain blossomed in his side, and he twisted off balance slightly, putting pressure on his wrists. "Robbie was beaten several times in prison, the penalty a man pays when he's been labeled a child molester." Then she proceeded to prove that part of her work out regime involved a punching bag. Her attentions were concentrated on Shawn's torso. For some reason she never went above the chest or below the stomach. When she finally took a breather, Shawn was reasonably certain that none of his ribs was whole. He'd also discovered that being punched in the solar plexus when he couldn't double over was amazingly uncomfortable.

"Well, that certainly taught my father a lesson," Shawn grunted when she drew away. "He won't frame anyone else." He paused for breath. "He promises, don't you, Dad?" He glanced at his father and then quickly away again. He was used to seeing a wide variety of negative emotions on his father's face, but not terror comingled with horror.

Sonja took off the gloves and walked over to Shawn. "Poor boy," she said, then she walked away. Shawn twisted his head around watched her leave the room.

"She is nucking futs!" he exclaimed.

"Shawn, I'm sor –"

Shawn whipped his head around. "Don't even start!" he snapped. "If you get all gooey on me, I'll smack you."

His father didn't seem to know what to say for a moment, then their years of snarky interchange rescued him. "How?" he demanded.

"You just wait till Lassie and Jules get here," Shawn said. "They'll let me down and then you're in trouble." He leaned slightly, then hissed when that put pressure on his wrists. "Okay, not doing that again. Can you see what else is in that box?"

"No, it's at completely the wrong angle," his father said. "Shawn, I . . . I don't know what to say."

"What do we usually talk about?" Shawn asked. "Let's see, there's fishing, and my lack of prowess. Um . . . my inability to get a decent job . . . or, women. We can usually talk about women. By the way, Dad, please, don't ask that chick on the beach out. She's a wacko."

"I'll keep that in mind, Shawn, but it's a little late."

"You asked her out?" Shawn asked in surprise.

Henry shook his head. "Not quite, I offered her a ride home. She had her hood up and was messing around. I thought she was having car trouble."

"Cute . . ." Shawn snorted, then winced. "The age-old way to catch the attention of the American male . . . mechanical incompetence."

"Mechanical incompetence in short shorts and a bikini top," Henry said.

"Dad! You're drooling over the woman who's torturing me."

"Not drooling, it was just a clever plan. Diabolically clever."

Shawn nodded. "Women. God should never have given them boobs."

His father grunted agreement.

The door behind them opened, interrupting their brief moment of mutual understanding. Shawn looked away. He just couldn't cope with the expression Sonja's reappearance called up in his father's eyes.

Sonya came up to him with a glass of water in her hand. "I'm sure you're thirsty, Shawn. Here, have a drink."

Shawn took a swallow of the water she held up to him and tried to think of something to say. "I have a girl I'm trying desperately to get to notice me," he said. "I bet she'll notice me now . . . if you stop, I'll bet she'll go all Florence Nightingale on me."

"Have another sip of water, Shawn," Sonja said. He obeyed because he was, in fact, thirsty. He'd done a certain amount of yelling, and that had dried out his throat. Then she mopped his brow with a damp cloth.

"What are you doing?" he asked incredulously. "You beat on me for a while, then you wipe up the sweat so it doesn't get in my eyes?"

Without responding, she moved away, putting the cloth down on the chair and the glass down on the floor. She reached into the box. "If I were to administer true justice, Henry, I would have to lock Shawn in a room with five other men for six years. I would have to arrange for him to beaten not once, but many times. I would have to find men to gang rape him."

Okay, the six years part sounded doable, but the other parts weren't so hot. Especially not that last bit. Shawn's focus remained on the hand that was still inside the box.

"Shawn doesn't deserve this," his father said, and he sounded pathetic. "Punishing me shouldn't involve him."

"That's the way it is, Henry," she said. "Killing you just isn't justice. You should live . . . live with the pain. You know now how it feels to know that your child is being abused, know he's being attacked for things that he didn't do, and know that you're helpless to stop it. Imagine that feeling going on for six years."

"I know, you're right, I know," Henry said. "Can't you just kill me now and let Shawn go?"

"Oh, Henry, don't you understand?" she said, standing up, her hands empty. She walked over to Shawn's father and put a hand on his shoulder. "You're not going to die. I'll make sure you survive. That's part of the punishment, living with the pain."

Henry looked up at her. "Shawn's mother loves him very much. She's done nothing to deserve having her son taken from her like this. Even if I deserve it, she doesn't."

"You should have thought about that before destroying my son's life," Sonja said. She turned back to the box and pulled out a small metal object that Shawn's brain refused wholeheartedly to identify. Part of him gibbered in horror, but the rest of him just tried to figure out why. Then she pressed a switch in the side and a blade flipped up.

Soooo not good.


	3. Chapter 3

Helen watched the frenzied activity with her heart in her throat. Six teams were gathering, including the detectives her son called Lassie and Jules. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but there was an air of hope in the squadroom that was very heartening. Unfortunately, the hope was leavened with a sense of urgency. Helen had been a police officer's wife for twenty years. She knew what that urgency meant.

As groups of officers left, Karen Vick walked up to her. "We have a very good lead, Helen," she said.

"I guessed," Helen said. "What are the chances?" Karen opened her mouth, but Helen cut her off. "And please don't give me the stock reassurance, Karen," she added. "I've been around the block a few times with Henry."

Karen was silent for a moment, then she sighed. "I honestly don't know."

* * *

Oddly enough, the warehouses were good sign. If she needed someplace to keep them, that meant she was going to keep them alive for awhile. She was hardly likely to rent a warehouse for a corpse, after all. They just had to reach her before she was ready to take that final and irrevocable step.

They had teams going to all of the warehouses on the list. He'd chosen the one that was farthest out of town, figuring that she might want some space around her. O'Hara hadn't entirely agreed, but she was navigating without comment.

The worst part about this was the length of the drive. Not even the county mounties had anyone near enough by to get there quickly. He could almost feel the seconds ticking away.

* * *

"Nothing, Henry?" Sonja said, and Shawn looked over at his father. He appeared to be staring off into the distance, blinking rapidly. "Henry?"

"Damn it!" Shawn muttered. "I gave him the stupid pill."

"What's wrong with him?" she asked. "Or . . . is he having a seizure?"

"I gave him his pill!" Shawn growled. "He shouldn't be."

"What kind of seizures does he have?" she asked.

"I don't know, I only found out about it yesterday, and he wasn't exactly around to ask."

"Well, that looks like an absence seizure, nothing serious. It should pass off momentarily." She looked over at Shawn and tsked. "How irresponsible of him not to tell you," she said. "Now, Shawn, I need you to understand something," she said, gesturing with the knife. The movement drew his gaze.

"Um . . . could you put that thing away?" he asked nervously. "I have kind of a . . . thing . . . about pointy objects. Not precisely a fear . . . more a distaste."

She sighed. "Shawn, you have to listen to me. This is important."

"What?" Shawn squeaked, eyes fixed to the glittering blade.

"I am a nurse, so I know how to do this without hitting anything vital, but if you move, you may kill yourself before I'm ready."

Shawn blinked at her. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I'm going to stab you, but I want to make it last, so I plan to avoid vital organs." He turned his head slowly to stare at her. "Please don't fight me, Shawn. I don't want to kill you before the time is right."

Shawn looked into her utterly calm eyes and wanted to scream his terror and anger to the world. This woman was a nutjob. "When will the time be right?" he asked instead, not sure he even wanted to know the answer.

"I'll know." She lifted Shawn's shirt and contemplated his ribs. Shawn stared at the wall helplessly while she tried to decide where to begin. "It's fortunate this won't last too much longer," she said calmly, reaching out with her free hand to touch him gently. "Those bruises would be very painful in a day or so." Taking a deep breath, she placed the knife up against Shawn's skin, and his eyes darted to his father's face. The point penetrated his skin and he stiffened in shock and panic. The pain was indescribable as the blade continued to move smoothly into his body. Shawn couldn't believe it was happening. The surreality and horror of having a woman impaling him slowly on a switchblade knife made him feel utterly unreal. Her warning turned out to be unnecessary. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to, and he wanted to. He couldn't even breathe. His eyes were fixed on his father's unseeing face.

Abruptly the knife's movement reversed and Shawn clenched his teeth. She pulled the knife out of him and returned to her contemplation. Shawn could now see the blade, blood dripping off it. His blood dripping off it. His breath came back to him with a gasp and he gulped. He shifted, and the pain made him take deep, panting breaths in an attempt to control it.

"Hush, Shawn," she said absently.

He nerved himself up to speak. "Forgive me if I'm missing something, but what good is this if my father can't see it?"

"Oh, he'll see it," she said with a smile. "And he'll understand a little more of my pain. But it will be easier to see if I remove your shirt."

Shawn was all in favor of that. Anything that got the cuffs off was fine by him. They were biting into his wrists like crazy, but then she started to take the knife to his t-shirt. "Hey hey hey! I totally like this shirt."

She chuckled. "Sacrifices must be made, Shawn. The shirt is the least of them." She sliced through the thin cotton and Shawn twitched away from the blade, grunting as the movement caused further pain. He breathed deeply, and even that caused pain.

Shawn looked over at his father again. He was still staring into the distance, but the blinking seemed to have slowed down. He was going to kill him for not warning him about those things. Sonja pulled the remnants of his shirt away and dropped it on the floor, and Shawn suddenly realized that the warehouse was a little bit chill. "Sonja, do you – ahh!" She had started another slow stab. "Stop that, God, I . . ." His voice and breath froze in his chest. He started to pull away, but the pain intensified suddenly and she put a hand on his side, as though to quiet him.

"Don't move, Shawn," she murmured, and he found himself paralyzed again by his horror. Agony was pressing into him with the blade. "This has to happen," she added gently. "Pretend I'm a doctor." Shawn couldn't help thinking that anesthesia would be part of that process. His breathing slowed to nothing again as the blade sank deeper into his body.

"Son of a bitch!"

They both jumped at the unexpected yell, and the blade's angle shifted suddenly, causing it to bite more deeply. Shawn voice was still frozen. He grunted and stared at his father's horror struck face.

"Henry!" Sonja exclaimed, turning and releasing the blade so that it stuck out of Shawn at a bizarre angle. "You shouldn't startle me like that!" Shawn closed his eyes, trying again not to move.

"You wacko bitch, you stuck a knife in my son's body!"

She pulled it out sharply, and Shawn screamed. With his eyes closed, he'd had no warning, and she'd taken less care to follow the same path out as in this time. She jabbed it back in immediately, this time with none of the deliberation of the two previous blows. Shawn screamed again, and he began to breathe shallowly, trying not to move enough to cause his body to shift around the knife blade.

"Robbie was stabbed to death," Sonja said, holding the knife in Shawn's body, her voice shaking with strong emotion. She looked at its placement and Shawn watched her eyes in sheer terror. He wanted to know what she was thinking. She turned back to his father and spoke in a conversational tone. "If I ripped upwards now, it would tear right into his lung, Henry." Shawn's breath caught in his throat.

"Don't! God, don't!" Henry pleaded, and Shawn was right there with him, but words were really not coming at the moment. Nothing was coming but blood trickling ticklishly down his body from the first two cuts. "He's a good kid. He doesn't deserve this."

Sonja's voice grew harder, and Shawn saw her knuckles whiten as she gripped the knife harder. "Robbie didn't deserve it, but he got it anyway."

"How is justice served by killing my son?" Shawn's father asked. "Let him go. Kill me!"

"How about we don't kill anyone?" Shawn said weakly between careful breaths, though he knew that option had been off the table for a long while. Probably even before he'd arrived. "How about we all go home and pretend this never happened?"

"I'm sorry, Shawn," she said, drawing the knife out and preparing to stab him again.

It looked like Jules and Lassie were going to be too late. He hoped Juliet would remember him fondly.

* * *

As they pulled into the parking lot, O'Hara pointed to a blue PT Cruiser, and Lassiter's hackles rose. They all got out of their cars and started towards the building, guns out and ready. This place was absolutely isolated. It was part of a larger complex, but at the edge, with a fair amount of parking around it.

"Quietly," Lassiter said. "Be careful once we're inside. I don't want her warned that we're coming."

There were nods all around, then the squad of four men spread out while he and O'Hara took the nearest door. It was locked, but a brief stop at the rental company had provided them with keys, so he waited while O'Hara slowly, quietly turned the key in the lock. She looked to see if he was ready. He nodded and she pulled the door open. He surged forward with his gun leading the way and scanned the room beyond the door. It was an office with a microwave, a bar fridge and a cot in it. A box of microwave popcorn sat on top of the fridge, and there were a few paperback romance novels lying next to the cot He gave O'Hara the hand signal for clear and headed in, the younger detective close behind him. There were three doors out of this room, and they couldn't be sure which one to take.

A distant voice made them both freeze. "No, God, don't do this, please!" It was Henry, and it gave them a direction. As one, they picked up the pace and went towards the center door.

* * *

The blade bit into him again, but Shawn knew it wasn't fatal this time, either. He wanted to live. He wanted to survive this insanity, but he would really like the cutting to stop. He felt overwhelmed by pain and anger and sheer terror.

"Shawn? Are you –"

He opened his eyes and looked at his father under Sonja's arm. "I'm fine, Dad," he said with an attempt at insouciance. "It's only a flesh wound."

Sonja smiled at him. "Brave boy," she said. "You –"

Shawn cut her off, glaring. "I've seen the evidence," he snarled. "And I know my father. He didn't fake anything. Your son was a vicious, stupid rapist who didn't even take the smallest precautions to avoid being caught."

Sonja's smile dropped off her face and he found himself looking into the eyes of insane rage for a split second. Then she smiled again, and the pleasant facade was back "Your support of your father speaks well of you, Shawn," she said, then she plunged the knife in again.

"Son of a bitch!" his father shouted. Shawn began to be aware that blood loss was a potentially huge problem that only increased with each wound. The trickle was turning into a flow, and he wasn't getting it back any time soon. His legs weren't really supporting him now – hadn't been for some time, and he thought he could feel a ticklish sensation on his arms. "You stupid bitch, stop it!" Henry shouted. "He never did anything to you, or your stupid son. He wasn't even in this state when I supposedly framed that idiot! He was in New York with his mother!" Shawn peered up and saw blood running down from his wrists, mute evidence of how much of his weight was now being supported by the cuffs.

Sonja jerked the blade out of Shawn's body and turned on his father. "You brought this on yourself, Henry. You are responsible for all of this." Shawn saw his father's eyes widen infinitesimally, but she didn't seem to notice. What was going on behind him? Had the cavalry come? "You will suffer for your sins, Henry Spencer, by watching your son suffer and die."

Sonja turned around and her eyes widened.

"Freeze! Police!" The voice was a familiar one, and Shawn almost fainted from relief. Lassie!

* * *

They went through the narrow hallway, hearing Henry periodically yell. Shawn screamed once, and Lassiter opened the door very slowly, peering around. The three of them were in a bad position from his location. Spencer was bound in a vertical position, his feet attached to the floor and body held upright by a chain leading to cuffs on his wrists. From his posture and the trickles of red on his arms, Lassiter could see that most of his weight was being supported by those cuffs alone. He was shirtless, and bruises were coming in all over his torso. There was also blood on the floor by his feet, but from here Lassiter couldn't see any wounds apart from the wrists, and those trickles hadn't even reached past his shoulders.

Durnstable was on the other side of him, almost entirely blocked by Spencer's body, and as if that weren't obstacle enough, Henry was beyond her, also in the line of fire.

He edged back slightly so that O'Hara could get a view of what was going on. Fortunately, Durnstable had her back to them, expostulating wildly at Henry, gesturing with . . . was that a knife?

O'Hara indicated her intent to flank the woman, and Lassiter nodded. O'Hara, bent almost double, slipped around the door frame and ghosted along the wall to his right. Lassiter started to move in the other direction, but at that moment, Durnstable turned again and she saw him.

He leveled his gun at her. "Freeze!" he ordered. "Police!" He had to keep her attention towards him or she might notice O'Hara, and then the jig would be up.

* * *

Sonja's eyes were fixed on the person behind Shawn, and he realized that Lassiter was not well placed to take any action against her. She seemed to know it, too. She turned her eyes to meet his. "We're out of time, kiddo," she said with a rueful smile. "Shawn Spencer," she said in a more formal tone, like she was reading charges in court or something. "Your life is forfeit for your father's crimes." As she spoke, she reached out and lifted Shawn's chin, and he felt the blade against the skin of his throat, above the jugular.

He heard a despairing cry from his father, felt a prick of pain on the skin of his neck, then a gunshot rang out, but not from behind him. Sonja fell, the knife clattering to the floor. Shawn turned his head to see a white-faced Juliet staring at the fallen woman, her gun still pointing at the spot Sonja had occupied.

His weight sagged, pulling torturously on his wrists. Abruptly, though, arms wrapped around him from behind, supporting him and taking the pressure off his arms and shoulders. "O'Hara, call for an ambulance."

Shawn put two and two together and came up with an unbelievable four. "Lassie? Are you hugging me?"

"Yes, Spencer," Lassiter snapped. "Don't let it go to your head,"

"Okay, um . . . I think I'm going to faint now," Shawn said, and waited. He certainly felt lightheaded enough, and it would be welcome relief from the pain, but nothing happened. "Now?" Nothing. "Man, that's not fair! They always pass out in the movies."

"Someone get me a chair," Lassiter called. "And get me some slack on this chain." That sounded good, Shawn thought.

The room was suddenly swarming with cops – if four officers plus Lassie and Jules could be called a swarm. Someone unbound his feet, but he was aware of something lacking. The question in his mind was answered when he heard someone shout, "I think he's having a seizure. Let's lay him out flat."

They got the cuffs off him, and he tried to go over to his father, but Lassiter was forced to catch him when he started to fall. "Sit down, Spencer," he said gruffly.

"Is my dad okay?" Shawn demanded. "That would be his second . . ." He paused and Lassiter wondered if he was really going to pass out now. ". . . his second seizure in less than an hour."

"He'll be fine," Lassiter said, gently placing Shawn into a chair that a subordinate slid in between them.

O'Hara ran up. "Shawn are you –" She stopped, staring. "Oh my God."

"What is it?" Lassiter asked, and he came around to stand in front of Spencer. There were at least five stab wounds in his chest and abdomen, and he'd clearly been beaten more from the front than from the rear. Lassiter glanced down at the unconscious woman and wished he could shoot her again.

* * *

Shawn didn't know what to say or think with Lassie and Jules staring down at him. "Look, I can go on my knees," he said mulishly, and they both looked puzzled. "I . . . he's . . . I need my dad."

"Shut up, Shawn," his father moaned from the circle of officers that had surrounded him.

"We have your medication, Henry," said one of the older officers, a man who had been on the force with Shawn's father.

"My medi – Shawn already gave me some. It's too soon." Henry fought his way up to a sitting position. "How many people did you tell, Shawn?" he demanded petulantly. Shawn shook his head and didn't speak. His father seemed to be getting closer, then further away, like waves on water. He stood up, still wavering weirdly. His eyes had an odd look in them. "Where's the ambulance?" he demanded. "Shawn needs the paramedics."

"They're on their way, Mr. Spencer," Juliet said.

"Well, get them to move faster." Shawn wanted to say something, but he suddenly felt like he was moving away from all of them. The world around him blurred except for a circle right in front of him that contained Lassie, Jules and his father, and they all seemed to be getting further and further away until he couldn't . . .

* * *

"They've got them!"

Helen looked up from the book she wasn't reading to Karen's face. "What? Where?"

"They're taking them to Memorial, Shawn and Henry both."

Gus was already on his feet. "The hospital? Are they okay?"

Karen shook her head. "I haven't got any specifics. We'll know more when we get there. Guster, do you want to drive with us?" He nodded wordlessly, and Karen led the way out to her car. Helen followed. Somehow knowing that they were in safe hands but in unknown condition was making her feel even worse.

"Did they get her?" Gus asked. "Durnstable, I mean?"  
"Detective O'Hara shot her," the chief said.

"She's dead?" Gus exclaimed.

"No, she's being taken to Memorial, too."

Rage stirred in Helen's heart. "Is she?" she asked in an undertone.

"Helen?" Karen said as they settled into the car. "I don't have any details, like I said, but O'Hara did say that they'd called the paramedics for Shawn." Helen looked at her, breath caught in her throat. "Durnstable's in custody, you need to focus on Shawn and Henry."

Helen grimaced. "You make sure nobody screws up on her evidence," she said. "You need to nail her to the wall."

Karen shook her head. "I really don't think that's going to be a problem."

* * *

Two sets of paramedics burst into the warehouse. One team took over the care of the younger Spencer, the other took Durnstable off under police guard. Lassiter took a step back and looked after their perpetrator. "Was she alone?" he asked the elder Spencer, in part to distract him from harrying the paramedics that were working on his son.

"I didn't see anyone else," Henry said, his attention still on his Shawn.

O'Hara closed her phone. "Gus, Mrs. Spencer and Chief Vick will meet us at the hospital."

"Be careful!" Henry snapped at one of the paramedics, but then he stopped and turned to O'Hara. "Helen's really here? He wasn't just improvising?"

"He called her yesterday," O'Hara said. "She got here this morning."

Henry rubbed the back of his neck, looking quite overwhelmed. "Wow."

"Someone going to ride along with this guy?" asked one of the paramedics.

"Oh yeah," Henry said, and he followed the resigned paramedic. Lassiter and O'Hara followed them out and watched them shut the doors. Lassiter glanced in the back window and saw Henry take his son's hand. He looked away. Not his business.

"Forensics can handle this," he said, "let's get to the hospital."

They drove as fast as was safe and reached the emergency room waiting area to find Henry pacing. "They kicked me out!" he growled. "Can you believe it?"

"Have you seen a doctor, Mr. Spencer?" Lassiter asked.

"I'll see my own doctor later," he replied shortly.

"Sir, I really think you –"

"Don't you get it, Carlton?" Henry snapped. "After she drugged me and tied me up, she didn't touch me again. I've got a couple of bruises and that's it." He shook his head. "She started to shoot me, but apparently that didn't make sense." He looked over at the emergency room doors and slammed his fist into the nearest wall. "God damn it!"

He turned away from the wall and seemed to be trying to regain his control, but his eyes widened blankly. "Helen?" he said.

"Henry!" Mrs. Spencer ran across to her ex-husband. "Where's Shawn? Is there any news?"

Spencer's voice was flat, but he seemed calm enough as he answered. "He's in surgery, but we haven't been here more than ten minutes."

Mrs. Spencer nodded slowly. "Okay, then how are you?"

Spencer didn't seem to hear her, he just started talking again right over her, as if she hadn't spoken. "He's been stabbed five times, in the chest and abdominal region." Mrs. Spencer's eyes widened and she stopped speaking. Chief Vick looked over at Lassiter who nodded grimly. "After she'd beaten up on him for awhile."

"My God!"

Lassiter drew aside from the couple and caught the chief's eye. She walked over, leaving O'Hara to keep the Spencers company. "Yes, detective?"  
"Spencer's refusing treatment," he said softly. "But according to Spencer, he's had two seizures in the last –"

"Excuse me, detective, but what?"

Lassiter replayed his sentence in his head and grimaced. "Sorry. Henry's refusing treatment, but according to Shawn he's had two seizures within an hour."

"According to Shawn?" the chief repeated. "When was Shawn talking? I thought he'd been stabbed five times."

"He was . . . conscious when we got there," Lassiter said. "He . . . he only screamed once while we were there."

Chief Vick swallowed, looking uneasy. "I see. Why are you telling me?"

"I can't insist that Henry accept treatment," Lassiter said. "You know his wife."

Vick looked over at the pair of them. "That I do," she said with a sigh. "So, what did you see?"

Lassiter took a deep breath. "It will all be in my report, chief," he said.

"I realize that," Vick said, but she wasn't done. "Unofficially, what happened?"

He grimaced. "When we got inside the warehouse, we could hear Spencer, Henry Spencer beg –telling her to stop. We heard Shawn scream once before we reached the scene and . . . he was hanging from a pair of handcuffs." He swallowed. "Sort of dangling, and she was yelling something at Henry about how it was really all his fault. When she saw me – I wasn't in a good position to attack – she started to cut Shawn's throat, but O'Hara shot her."

"Cut his throat?" the chief repeated, eyes wide with shock.

"Yes, chief," he said, and his face felt tight.

"Thank God you stopped her, then."

"Thank O'Hara," Lassiter said. "She did excellent work."

"You both did."

"Thank you, chief," he said.

She looked over at the doors to the emergency room, her eyes distant. "Now let's hope he makes it," she said softly.

"Oh, he'll make it," Lassiter said with conviction. "If there's one thing I know about Shawn Spencer, it's that he's the stubbornest man on the planet. He won't let something like this stop him."

"I hope you're right," she said.

"I know I am."

She smiled at him, then walked back over to the Spencers, guiding them to sit down in a corner. O'Hara sat down in a row of seats by herself. She'd been very quiet on the way over, and she hadn't said much since they got here. He walked over and sat down beside her. "How are you, O'Hara?" he asked.

Her brow furrowed and she turned to him, eyes flashing with fire. "I just heard one of my friends screaming while his father begged someone not to do whatever it was to him." Her voice was low and intense with rage. "Then I got in there and saw him strung up to be tortured, saw that wacko bitch nearly kill him, had to shoot her, and then I got a good look at his maimed and mutilated body. Now he's in surgery and we don't even know for sure if he's going to live." She paused, glaring at him. "How do you think I feel?"

He nodded. "From the sound of it," he said, "about like me."

She blinked at him, and her eyes softened. "Oh . . . Carlton, I didn't –" She reached out to hold his hand.

He pulled it away irritably. "Okay, let's not go overboard here."

"I said I don't want to see a doctor!" Henry said angrily.

"And I said you're going to," replied Mrs. Spencer with equal force.

"Who died and made you God?" Henry demanded, and then he went white. "I mean – I didn't mean –"

"Go with the doctors, Henry. If you're as fine as you say you are, they'll release you right away, long before Shawn's out of surgery."

"I'll hold you to that," he said, and both of them got up and headed to the front desk.

Chief Vick stood up and came slowly over to the detectives. "That went well," she said, settling down. "And now, we wait."

Lassiter growled deep in his throat, and both the women looked at him curiously. "I hate waiting."

"I brought coffee for everyone," Guster said, walking up with a tray of cups in his hands. "Where are Mr. and Mrs. Spencer?"

"It looks like Henry's being admitted," the chief said, nodding over at where they were talking to a doctor.

"Was he hurt? I didn't think he'd been hurt!"

The chief stared at him incredulously. "Mr. Guster, he was knocked out, drugged, and then tied up for nearly twenty-four hours. On top of that, he had two seizures in quick succession."

Guster opened his mouth, then shoved the tray into Lassiter's hands and hurried over to the Spencers.

Lassiter looked at the cups on the tray. Somehow, none of them had spilled. "Anyone want coffee?" he asked. Chief Vick took a cup, then O'Hara took the tray and put it down on one of the side tables and handed him a single cup.

Guster came back as the Spencers disappeared into the hospital. "He's being admitted for observation," he said, picking a cup for himself. "What happened? I haven't heard a thing except that Shawn's in surgery."

Lassiter grimaced. Oh, goody, a new person to tell.


	4. Chapter 4

Lassiter walked into the hospital room hesitantly. He hoped he'd caught Spencer at a moment when he was totally alone, but as he peeked around the curtain, he found Henry sitting beside the bed, holding his son's hand and talking quietly to him.

He cleared his throat before he could actually hear anything. Henry looked up. "Carlton!"

"Henry."

They were both silent for a moment, then Lassiter put the pineapple he was holding onto the nearest flat surface, the top of a cabinet. It had a big green bow on it. "Nice," Henry said.

"You tell him I brought it and I'll deny everything," Lassiter replied. "Better yet, I'll take it away again."

"I know nothing." Henry lapsed into silence, and Lassiter noticed that he hadn't released his son's hand despite the fact that he had an audience.

"Any news?"

"They're dialing back the drugs today," Henry said. "He should wake up later this evening or early tomorrow morning, so if you wanted to get your visit in before he could actually take notice if it, your timing's good."

"Ah. Good." He didn't quite know what to say. "Where's Mrs. Spencer?"

"I sent her home," Henry said.

"To New York?" Carlton asked in surprise.

"No, to the house. She used to live there, you know." Lassiter nodded, flushing. "She's been here all day every day for hours, and she needed to get some real sleep." Henry snorted. "Of course, knowing her, she's probably still cleaning up imaginary dirt. She doesn't believe that a man can keep house."

"Oh, yeah?" Lassiter wondered if Henry found this conversation as awkward as he did. "Who else has been by?" He wandered over to the window wall and started looking at the incredible number of Get Well cards that were taped there.

"Karen, Gus, Detective O'Hara. Most of those were dropped off at the front desk. I guess people know he's not really going to know if they've been here."

"His condition is part of the morning briefing." Lassiter flipped through the cards. "Looks like most of the department," he said.

"I noticed that." Henry shrugged. "Along with most of the rest of Santa Barbara. Two reporters have been by. I got the hospital staff to run them off."

"Damn vultures."

"They wrote nice stories about him," Henry said, gesturing at a small pile of newspapers on the bedside table. "I just . . . there are questions a man doesn't want to answer."

"And many of them start 'how did you feel when . . .'" Lassiter commented.

"Oh yeah," Henry sighed. A silence grew between them. Lassiter was no longer looking at the cards, just gazing out the window. "You know," Henry said, "you don't have to stick around. It's not like he's going to notice if you leave."

"Do you need anything?"

Henry was silent for a moment, then he spoke. "A gun and free access to the bitch in 11C?" He was gazing into his son's face, and Lassiter knew just how serious he was.

"Oddly enough, I've got that," Lassiter said. "But do you know what Shawn would do if he woke up to find out you were in prison?" Henry didn't reply, he just shrugged.

"Detective Lassiter!" He turned to find that Guster had entered the room. "Shawn will be glad to know you stopped by." He glanced at the fruit and a grin spread across his face. "And brought a pineapple."

Lassiter grimaced. There wasn't any point in asking Guster to keep it a secret. "Good," he said insincerely.

"Thanks for coming," Henry said.

Lassiter nodded at both men and headed out. He comforted himself with the knowledge that while Spencer might know he'd come by and brought a gift, he'd probably spend hours trying figure out why.

* * *

Beep. Beep. Beep. Shawn blinked his eyes and looked at the ceiling. He knew that sound. That constant beeping meant medical monitors and medical monitors meant a hospital. So, why was he in the hospital? He started to sit up, but every muscle fiber on the front of his body protested. "Ow!" he exclaimed.

"Shawn, you're awake!" Gus suddenly appeared in his view.

"Yes, Gus, thank you for stating the blindingly obvious. What happened?"

Gus stared at him for a moment. "I've got one name for you, Shawn. Sonja Durnstable."

"Depending on how you looked at it, that could be two . . ." Shawn stopped in mid-patter as the memories hit him full force. "Oh . . . her." He stared at the ceiling again. "Crap."

"Yeah." Gus pulled a chair closer and sat down. "How are you feeling?"

"Like someone used me for a punching bag for awhile and then stabbed me five times," Shawn said. He paused to consider. "Actually I feel better than I might have expected."

"You've been sedated for three days."

Startled, Shawn tried to sit up again and let out a grunt of pain, clenching his fists, as he slumped back.

"Shawn, don't do that!" Gus exclaimed.

"Right," Shawn gritted. "Where's my dad? Is he okay? Why isn't he here?"

"He is here," said a very familiar voice and Shawn turned his head. "He just stepped out for a minute." Henry stood at the end of Shawn's bed looking down at him silently for several moments. "You look like crap, kid."

"And you look peachy," Shawn said, glad to see that he was okay.

His father looked abruptly very uncomfortable. "Don't rub it in, kid. I . . . she is one hell of a whack job."

"No doubt," Shawn said. He stared at his father for a long moment, then he opened his mouth to ask Gus to leave for a minute, but Gus spoke before he could.

"You just can't see it, Shawn," Gus said earnestly. "His hat covers the bruises on his head."

Shawn sighed. "Gus, can we have a minute? I mean . . ." He glanced at the curtain that hid the door to the room. "Do I have a roommate?"

"It's a private room," Henry said. "But they keep leaving the door open, and I thought we needed a little more privacy."

"Then, Gus, a minute, please? And shut the door?"

Gus looked back and forth between them uneasily. "Sure, Shawn. I'll go grab something at the vending machine." He walked out of the room, looking back frequently and suspiciously.

"What's this about, kid?" his father asked.

"Take your hat off," Shawn ordered.

"You saw my head while we were in –"

"And you don't bruise the way I do. It takes awhile to show up."

Henry rolled his eyes and shook his head. "If you sent Gus out to get a look at my head, you wasted all our time. I –"

"How could you let me walk blind into those seizures, Dad?" Shawn demanded, and his father froze. "What I'd come over and found you unconscious and twitching on the floor? I wouldn't have had the foggiest clue what was going on."

Henry looked away. "Your mother's been pretty emphatic on that score, too," he said quietly.

"Anything else fun that I should know?" His father shook his head. "How long have you had those things?"

"I don't really have them much anymore," Henry said. "The medications keep them pretty well controlled."

"When did they start, Dad?" Shawn demanded.

"It was awhile ago." Shawn continued to stare at him expectantly. His father shrugged. "I tackled a suspect and we got into a scuffle. My head hit a pole really hard and it was hard enough to screw things up."

"Screw things up?" Shawn repeated dumbly. "As in brain damage?"

"As in epilepsy," Henry said. He shook his head and met Shawn's eyes. "You know how you got on my case about retiring too early?" Shawn nodded. "Well, now you know why."

Shawn gaped at him for a second, then huffed out an exasperated sigh. "Man! See, that's what I mean. I would never have said that if I'd known. Now I feel guilty."

"If you want to talk guilt, Shawn, you don't have anything on me. This whole thing with Durn–"

"No!" Shawn snapped. "Don't even go there."

"Shawn, she was after me. You wouldn't have even been involved if –"

"That insane bitch hadn't taken a further step into nutsville," Shawn interjected. "This is not your fault." He rolled his eyes. "Unless you're going to try and tell me that you actually did frame her idiot son, which I categorically will _not_ believe."

His father's eyes flashed. "Of course not, but –"

"But nothing," Shawn said. "It's not your fault."

"You don't understand, Shawn. I had to sit there, and nothing I said, nothing I did, would get her to stop. If I could just have –"

"If I couldn't convince her to stop with my boyish charm, you didn't have a chance," Shawn retorted.

"Shawn!" When his father snatched off his hat in his agitation, Shawn saw the bruises Gus had mentioned, and they were spectacular. "It's not that simple. You can't just laugh it off with a joke and make –"

This was too much. Preparing to retort, Shawn raised an arm and leaned forward. Both movements caused intense pain, and his first word died on a groan.

His father was at his side immediately. "Fine, whatever you want, just stop trying to move, you idiot!" His father pressed him back against the bed and pushed the call button.

"I'm fine, Dad. I don't need some nurse to . . ." _I am a nurse, so I know how to . . ._ Shawn broke off, shivering. "I'm fine."

"You are anything but fine, Shawn."

The door opened and Shawn heard footsteps. His stomach did a complete flip-flop and then something unexpected happened. A young man wearing scrubs walked in. "I see you're awake," he said with a lilt to his voice. "I'm your nurse this shift, Michael."

Shawn blinked at the man. "First time in my life I've ever been grateful for a male nurse," he said without thinking.

"Oh, but I've heard you're a terrible flirt," Michael said, walking over and looking at his vitals. "I'll be disappointed if you don't live up to your reputation," he added with a grin. "What did you need?"

Shawn looked over at his father who seemed to be stuck. "Full body massage?" he suggested archly, and Michael chucked. "Seriously, though, dude, nothing. I'm fine. Dad just overreacted."

"I did not overreact," Henry growled. "He tried to sit up and he hurt himself."

Michael flipped the front of Shawn's hospital gown open, and Shawn looked down, expecting to see five little slits that were maybe stitched a little. Instead, he saw those and a couple of incisions. "What the hell?"

"You had internal bleeding, and they couldn't be sure she hadn't nicked anything important."

"Exploratory surgery?" Shawn squeaked.

"The doctor will explain more later," he said. "I don't see any bleeding or new inflammation, so I think you're fine." He raised his eyebrows. "How much pain are you in on a scale of one to ten?" As he spoke, he gestured to the wall where there was a sign that progressed from a very unhappy face at ten to a cheery face at one.

Shawn looked at it, having trouble absorbing that he needed to choose which smiley to apply to his level of pain. "Um . . . about four, I'd guess," he said. "Am I already on drugs?"

Michael nodded and looked at Shawn's chart. "I can give you something a little stronger in about an hour. Can you manage till then?" Shawn nodded glumly. "If the pain spikes, say to a seven or eight, give me a call, though."

"Believe me, I will," Shawn said.

Michael left and Shawn rested his head back on the bed. "Well . . . this sucks."

"Yeah," Gus said from the edge of the curtain. "But Detective Lassiter brought you a pineapple."

"Lassie? Brought me a pineapple?" Shawn said. He scanned the room and his eyes lit on the fruit. "With a bow?"

"Way to keep the secret, Gus!" Shawn's father growled.

Gus blinked at him. "There was a secret?" he asked.

"Not anymore."

Shawn watched with amusement. "So . . . Lassie doesn't want me to know he came by?" he said speculatively.

"Now, Shawn, don't give the man a hard time," Henry said irritably. "He saved your life."

Shawn's mind flashed back to the scene, the moment of pure relief when he heard Lassie's voice and knew the cavalry had come. "Why does that mean I can't give him a hard time?" he asked. The amount of energy this conversation was taking was astonishing. "Lassie wouldn't recognize me if I didn't give him a hard time." His father glowered at him, and Shawn felt his eyes start to close. "Where's Mom?"

"I called her. I think there must be traffic."

"I think I'm falling asleep," Shawn said. "But I want . . . I want . . ."

"Go to sleep, Shawn," his father said. "She'll be here when you wake up."

Annoying as it was, Shawn had no choice but to obey.

* * *

Helen went through the door into Shawn's room and peered around the curtain. Gus was sitting in the corner, reading, and Henry sat beside the bed, holding Shawn's hand. Shawn himself was pale and peaceful-looking, an entirely unnatural state for her son. "I thought you said he was awake, Henry," she said.

"He was," Henry replied without turning. "He fell asleep again. He asked where you were."

"You sent me home," she replied with some asperity.

Henry looked up, face full of unexpected vulnerability. "I didn't mean – I just was letting you know. I told him it was probably traffic."

"Oh," she said, irritation dispersed. She heard the door close and looked up. Gus was gone. He'd always been a tactful boy. "Did he say much?"

"He yelled at me."

Helen walked up and put a hand on Henry's shoulder. "He doesn't blame you, does he?"

"No, that's just it," Henry said. "He's mad at me because I feel guilty."

"Why do you feel guilty?" Helen asked.

"She wouldn't have gone after Shawn if . . ." He shook his head.

"If she wasn't psychotic," Helen pointed out. "Look, don't do this, or you'll make me want to strangle her even more than I already do."

"I thought you'd understand," Henry said without looking up.

Helen walked around and sat down on the other side of the bed where she could see Henry's face. "What do you mean, I'd understand?"

"You're the one who said that being a cop was too hard on a man's family," he said without looking at her.

"This is _not_ what I meant, Henry. This . . ." She shook her head. "This could happen to a man who fired some insane woman's son and he killed himself. This is not about you being a cop, this is about a woman who can't accept her son's death." Henry just shook his head, and Helen reached across to put her hand on his. "What happened in there?" she asked. "I'm still not clear on more than the physical results. What happened?"

He shook his head again. "It doesn't matter. It's over. It's done."

"Henry, I have a right to know."

"And I have a right not to talk about it," Henry replied, and Helen sat back with a stifled curse.

She glared at him. "This is the thing that drove me nuts, you know, more than anything else! The way you bottled everything in. Well this time it isn't just about you. It's Shawn, too, and I need to know."

Henry closed his eyes. "You think I don't know this is about Shawn?" he asked quietly.

"Tell me what happened. You know damned well that Shawn's going to try to pass it off with a few quips and an innocent look." She shook her head, eyes hot with tears. "And where do you think he gets that?"

Henry looked up. "I never made jokes about my job, Helen. What are you talking about?"

She wanted to yell, but she clasped her hands in front of her face, pressing her thumbs to her lips as she breathed, holding her anger in. When she could speak calmly, she said, "I meant the bottling things in. He chose a different defense mechanism, but that doesn't change anything."

"I still don't know –"

"And don't change the subject, Henry. What happened?"

"Fine, you want to know?! I'll tell –" Shawn shifted and muttered unhappily, and Henry scowled. "Now look what you made me do," he said quietly. "Shawn?" Their son didn't respond, but he quieted now that no one was yelling.

"Henry, you don't have to yell to tell me, do you?"

He took a deep breath. "Fine," he said quietly, looking up at the ceiling. "She grabbed me and knocked me out, you know that much." Helen nodded, keeping quiet. "I woke up tied to a chair and she started spouting at me all about this justice crap, how I ruined her son's life and was responsible for his death and how she had to punish me. I thought I was dead. She had a gun, she put it to my head and was about to shoot me when she got this funny look on her face and stopped." Helen saw that Henry's free hand was fisting and unfisting, twisting with agitation, but the hand holding Shawn's didn't move at all. "She lowered the gun and stepped back and said that killing me didn't make sense."

"Didn't make sense?" Helen repeated despite herself. "What does that mean?"

"Apparently I wouldn't suffer enough. It wouldn't be justice." He rubbed his forehead, pushing his hat up on his head and Helen caught sight of one of the bruises Henry had been hiding. "So she basically disappeared. I thought maybe she was just going to let me starve to death or something, but it . . . it didn't feel right. Anyway, I didn't see her at all again until she came in carrying Shawn. He was limp, unconscious, and I thought . . ." His voice broke.

Helen reached across and squeezed his hand.

"He wasn't dead, but she wouldn't explain anything to me. She just cuffed him, tied him into a chair and tended the cut he had on his forehead." He gestured vaguely towards the small bandage. "Then she went away. She came back every so often to check on Shawn, but she didn't talk to me again until he woke up." He dried up then, not speaking for a long time till Helen finally realized she'd have to get him started again.

"What happened then?"

"He woke up," Henry said. "I basically accused him of playing at detective work and getting himself caught, and then she came in. She was creepier with Shawn than anything I've ever seen. Almost . . . almost affectionate, sympathetic, apologizing that she had to hurt him to punish me." Helen controlled her emotions with difficulty. Past experience had taught her that if she let anything show, Henry would clam up instantly. "Shawn kept trying to con her into realizing that hurting him didn't really make sense, trying to get her to back away from hurting anyone, but she just stuck . . . she gave us five minutes alone." His face was all screwed up with emotion. "Would you believe he managed to get me my medication? All the rest of that insane crap going on, and he gets my medication into me, for all the good it did."

"I think I'm going to puke," said a weak voice in between them and they both looked down.

"Shawn?" Henry exclaimed. He scrabbled at the bedside table and pulled out a basin. "Here."

Shawn made a face. "Dad! Just stop talking about me like that, like I'm some kind of hero or something."

Henry's voice took on that familiar ring of irritation. "I did not call you a hero, Shawn," he said sharply. "Don't be an idiot. Go back to sleep."

Shawn frowned at him. "Whatever." He turned his head. "Mom. Hi."

"Go back to sleep, Shawn," she said, reaching over to stroke his face. "I'll be here when you wake up."

"S'what he said," Shawn murmured, then he seemed to drift off again.

"We can't do this here," Henry said. "He needs his rest."

"I promised to be here when he wakes up," Helen said. "And it will be fine. Just tell me the rest, Henry."

"What rest? She tortured him and I had to watch, except for the charming time period when I was apparently having a seizure."

"Apparently?"

"I don't remember the seizure," he said. "I just remember her picking up the God damned switchblade and then looking over and seeing her with the damned thing halfway into Shawn." Helen clapped her hand over her mouth, her gut roiling at the image Henry's words called up. "He already had a stab wound by then, for Christ's sake," Henry continued. "I guess I just freaked out and . . ." He shook his head. "I'd have thought she'd skip it when I couldn't see." Helen closed her eyes, but that only brought the images clearer to her mind. "She actually stopped with the knife sticking out of him, just let go of it and turned around to talk to me."

"Oh my God!" Helen breathed, horrified. She reached across Shawn and grabbed the basin and emptied her gut into it. When she was done, Henry was standing in front of her with a cup of water. He took the basin and disappeared into the room's bathroom.

He came out drying his hands on a piece of paper towel, holding out a wet cloth for her. "Helen, I think we should stop."

"No, Henry," Helen said. "Unless . . ." She studied his face, but he didn't seem any worse off than he had before. "No, tell me."

"Helen . . ." She just raised her eyebrows and he rolled his eyes. "Fine. She stabbed him three more times and the cops showed up. She started to kill him, but O'Hara shot her. The end." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I could kiss that woman."

"So could I," Helen said. "Henry, nothing you just described could in any way be your fault."

He shook his head. "You know, logic really doesn't enter into it, Helen. I sat there and just watched that bitch beat up on Shawn and then stab him repeatedly. I feel like shit."

"I feel like shit, Henry. Anyone who cares about Shawn would feel like shit about what happened to him."

He shook his head, and swallowed convulsively. Then he met her gaze and the look in his eyes made her want to cry. "It's not the same," Henry said, his voice so quiet she could barely hear him.

"No," Helen said, standing up and going to him. She hugged him tightly. "You had to watch, and I do not envy you that, but don't confuse feeling like shit over not being able to prevent it with responsibility. You couldn't stop it. You couldn't predict it. You had no choice, and you didn't do anything wrong that made it happen. It's not your fault."

He relaxed into her arms at that and she held him for a long while. She wanted to send him home to get some rest, just as he'd sent her, but she didn't think he needed to be alone.

"Oh my God!" Shawn exclaimed from behind them, and they broke apart. "Am I dying?"

"No, you are not dying!" Henry said, sounding exasperated. "What on earth would give you that idea?"

Shawn looked back and forth between them. "You two. You're hugging. You haven't even spoken politely in ten years."

Helen rolled her eyes at the gross exaggeration. "Don't be ridiculous, Shawn. Besides, we're adults. We can manage our own affairs."

He blinked at them for a long moment. "You're having an affair!?"

"Shawn!" Henry exclaimed in a familiar tone.

"Who's having an affair?" Gus asked, coming into the room and Helen thumped her head against Henry's chest. She'd forgotten Gus's other gift. Timing.

* * *

Shawn opened his eyes and looked to his left. He'd been aware of his father every time he'd drifted to the surface, but he didn't seem to be here now. "I sent him home with Gus." Shawn turned his head and saw his mother sitting by the window with a puzzle book in her lap. "How do you feel?" He shrugged, and his shoulders protested. He must have made a face, because his mother leaned closer. "Did that hurt?"

"I think my left pinky toe doesn't hurt," he said. "But I haven't moved it lately."

She gave him a sympathetic look. "It will get better, I promise."

He nodded. "You're looking good," he said. "The darker hair suits you."

She brushed her fingers through her hair. "Thanks. I'm not one of those women who looks good with gray hair."

The window wall was covered with cards. Usually they didn't let people put them up like that, and Shawn wondered if his mother had gotten permission or if she'd just done it and dared the nurses to make her take them down. "Who are all the cards from?"

"Your friends," she said.

"I can't read them from here."

"I could read them to you," she suggested.

"Sure," he replied, leaning his head back. Awhile later, she was in the middle of reading one that made him wonder why on earth he'd agreed to such an insane idea, one from a girl he knew named Tiffany, when, just to make things worse, Juliet walked in with Lassie. Both of them had clearly heard Tiffany's comments because their eyebrows were all the way at their hairlines.

"Let me know if they put you in traction, because I'll bet that could be fun." The tone his mother said it in removed all amusement value, as did the look on Juliet's face.

"Gee, Spencer, she sounds like a real peach," Lassie said, and his mother turned in surprise. Clearly she hadn't heard them come in. "Just the kind of girl you bring home to meet Mom."

Jules hit Lassiter in the gut. "Lassiter!" she hissed, gesturing with her head towards Shawn's mom.

"Oh, don't worry, dear," Helen said. "I've been Shawn's mother for twenty-eight years. I know his predilections."

"Mom!" Shawn groaned. He wanted to add _not in front of Jules_ but that would be a little too much.

"He's adventurous, very open-minded."

"I have never had sex in traction!" Shawn growled.

She tilted her head. "Handcuffs?"

Shawn felt himself turn beet red. "Mother!" he exclaimed despairingly.

"Any girl brave enough to take Shawn on full time is going to have her hands full." Shawn wanted to fall through the mattress. Juliet looked amused, not turned off, but still.

Juliet walked over to him. "I brought you a smoothie," she said. "And I checked with the doctors first, they say you can have it." She handed him a small cup, and he sighed. "They did say not much," she added apologetically.

"Thanks, and thanks for the pineapple, Lassie," Shawn said, gesturing at the large gift he'd brought. "It made my day."

Lassiter's eyes were huge, and Shawn could tell that he felt inhibited in Shawn's mother's presence. "You brought Shawn a pineapple?" Juliet said looking up at Lassie with a surprised grin. "That's so . . . nice."

His mother cleared her throat. "Well, I need to get some fresh air, Shawn, do you mind if I leave you with your friends?"

"No, Mom, go. Please." If she stayed, the next step would surely be dredging up ancient embarrassing stories that would make him the laughingstock of the police station for weeks. She riffled Shawn's hair lightly and went out.

Lassiter watched her go, and Shawn could tell that he'd planned to make this a quick in and out visit. Foiling that plan was fun, too. Juliet sat down in the chair next to the bed. "How are you feeling, Shawn?" she asked.

"Like a pin cushion," he said disconsolately. "An abused pin cushion."

Lassiter snorted. "It was bound to happen sooner or later," he said, and Shawn looked up at him curiously. "Someone was bound to fill you full of holes. I confess, I expected a gun, but –" Lassie shrugged. Juliet looked horrified.

"Hey," Shawn protested, "I thought there was a moratorium on those kind of comments."

"Your father is no longer missing, Spencer," Lassiter pointed out, and Shawn had to admit he had a point, but . . .

"Lassiter!" Juliet hissed. "Do you –"

"You're going to hit me with the list now?" Shawn exclaimed incredulously, and Lassiter just looked at him. "But I got stabbed. A bunch of times."

"It's perfect. You can't remember something and scamper away." Lassiter sat down in the chair Shawn's father usually used and pulled out a memo pad. "Ready?"

Shawn straightened his shoulders and ignored the pain. "Hit me with your best shot."

Juliet groaned.

* * *

Helen knew that Shawn would enjoy spending time with his friends. He might complain constantly about Lassiter, but a mother knew her son. Shawn adored a battle of wits, and Lassiter apparently provided one.

She took a short walk in the grounds, grabbed a Sudoku book from the gift shop and headed back to Shawn's room. When she got within five feet of the door, she heard him laughing hysterically. "I can't believe you wrote that down, Lassie. That's so petty!"

"I do not find any aspect of police work petty, Spencer," Lassiter said solemnly.

"I don't usually, either, but . . . wow," O'Hara said. "I mean . . . wow."

"Okay, give me the next one," Shawn said, and Helen was glad to hear him sounding so cheerful.

"Why don't you leave some for the next visit," O'Hara suggested.

"What next visit?" Lassiter said. "Did you think we were coming back?"

"Why not?" O'Hara asked, and Helen stifled a laugh. She was quite a girly girl for a cop.

"Come on, Lassie, don't stop now," Shawn said, but he didn't sound quite as chipper. Helen sighed. There were bound to be down moments.

"Shawn?" O'Hara said, and there was concern in her voice. "You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," Shawn said, but he really didn't sound it. "Lassie, come –"

"Spencer?" Lassiter exclaimed, and the concern in his voice worried Helen more. She started forward, reaching for the curtain as Lassiter kept speaking. "Why is he so pale? Maybe we should –"

Something new started beeping and Helen ran all the way into the room, against the window so that she would be out of the way. A second later a slew of nurses and doctors dashed in. "I'm sorry, we're going to have to ask you all to leave," one of the nurses said, and the three of them trouped outside and congregated a little ways away, near the nurse's station. A few moments later, a couple of orderlies moved swiftly in with a gurney, and then the whole cavalcade hurried out.

One man glanced over. "We're taking him into surgery. We'll let you know as soon as we know something."

Helen watched them go, then hurried after to the surgery waiting room. The detectives followed her and sat with her. "Oh my God," she said after a few moments. "I need to call Henry."

"I'll get it, Mrs. Spencer," Lassiter said. "O'Hara, stay with her."

Helen covered her face with her hands and tried to find the strength to wait.


	5. Chapter 5

Lassiter went outside to where he was actually allowed to turn on his cell phone and dialed Henry's number. The phone rang four times, then Henry picked up sounding sleepy. Lassiter pursed his lips. He really didn't want to be passing along this information.

"Hello?" Henry said.

"Henry, um . . . Shawn's gone back into surgery."

"What?"

"Helen was going to call you, but I thought she should stay where – Henry?" There was a click before he finished his sentence, and Lassiter realized that Henry had hung up. He called Guster, too, but it turned out he was with Henry. Taking a deep breath, he called the chief's number. He passed the news to her as well and went back inside to sit down with O'Hara and Mrs. Spencer.

Henry, Gus and the chief had all arrived before a doctor came to tell them what was up. He came out into the waiting room still dressed for surgery. "Mr. and Mrs. Spencer?" he said, glancing around at the crowd.

"Please just go ahead," Mrs. Spencer said.

"I'm Dr. Patel. Shawn is in recovery now, and we think he's going to be fine. There was a nick in one of his arteries that split suddenly. I'm not sure what he was doing, but any kind of physical activity might have caused it."

"He was laughing really hard," O'Hara said worriedly.

"That could easily do it," Dr. Patel said.

Lassiter's knees suddenly failed to support him, and he sank into a chair. "Oh my God, it's my fault," he murmured.

"That's as may be," the doctor said. "But it's a good thing it happened now. If it had happened after we'd released him, it might not have been recognized in time."

"Are you sure you've got all the nicks now?" Henry demanded angrily.

"As sure as we can be," Patel replied.

"What does that mean?" Henry snapped.

"It means, sir, that we examined all the sites around the injuries carefully and fixed any problems we found, but it's possible to miss minor issues. For example, the artery we just repaired was undoubtedly not actually cut, but simply scored. It –"

"I feel sick!" Helen blurted, covering her mouth with her hands. Henry put his arm around her.

Lassiter, too, was controlling nausea. He couldn't believe it. He'd nearly killed Spencer.

"So, what does this mean?" Henry asked. "Do we need to have him run a marathon on a treadmill before he leaves the hospital?"

Patel shook his head with a slight smile. "I don't think that will be necessary, but if he starts to feel faint at any point, or has a sudden drop in blood pressure, he should immediately come to the emergency room. Not that you need to worry about that any time soon. He won't be released for some days yet."

"When will he come out of recovery?" Mrs. Spencer asked.

"It will be a couple of hours yet. Someone will come tell you if anything changes."

Everyone else sat back down, too. After a few moments, Henry said, "Why was he laughing so hard?"

The question was clearly directed at O'Hara, but she glanced over at Lassiter. He flushed. "I was . . . I was insulting him."

"You were what?" Chief Vick exclaimed. "Detective Lassiter, I don't –"

"The list?" Guster interjected.

"Yeah," Lassiter said, touching his pocket self-consciously.

"It's something Shawn and Lassiter worked out between them," Guster said, and Lassiter didn't know whether to thank him for explaining or to tell him to shut up. "Shawn thought it was funny."

"Oh, he was enjoying it," Mrs. Spencer said. "I was listening outside the door for a couple of minutes, and I thought it was great for Shawn."

Lassiter felt his face redden. Not only had his antics almost killed Spencer, but he'd insulted the man in the hearing of his mother. "I'm going to hell," he muttered, leaning his head back against the wall.

"It was Shawn's suggestion," Guster said defensively, and Lassiter looked up to see him glaring at the chief who still looked very dubious. "And the doctor just said it was good it happened now. Besides, how can it be bad to make him laugh?"

"It can't," Mrs. Spencer said. "Karen, I left them alone on purpose because I could see they had a better chance of cheering him up than I did. Moms are good for comfort and embarrassing people, and not much more."

"Oh, I don't know about –" O'Hara started, but Mrs. Spencer turned to her.

"Boys' moms, I mean."

"Oh, right," O'Hara said with an embarrassed laugh.

"He's going to be fine," Henry said firmly. "And the only one to blame is the bitch in room 11C."

Mrs. Spencer smiled and put her arm around her husband. "Good for you, Henry," she said.

* * *

Shawn woke up to the sound of someone moving around in the room. He opened his eyes and looked over to see a woman bent over one of his monitors. She looked about forty-five and had blond hair tied up in a knot on the back of her head. Her face was in profile, but his heart sped up and his breathing shortened. It looked like . . . it couldn't be . . .

The sounds of the machines changed to correspond with his physical reactions and the woman turned, breaking the brief illusion. "Mr. Spencer?" the woman said. "My name is Jeanine. I'm your nurse this shift. Are you all right?"

"Sure," Shawn said, but he wanted her out of the room. She wasn't Sonja, but somehow her presence was really freaking him out. He looked around. "Where are my parents?"

"Your mother went home and your father is in the restroom. He'll be back in just a moment."

"Good." He reached over and picked up the remote for the TV. Maybe he could distract himself. He found ESPN, but just then Jeanine flipped his gown open and started looking at his stitches.

He shoved her away before he thought. "Get away!" he said, staring at her.

"Mr. Spencer, I need to check –"

He shook his head earnestly. "Get someone else. Is Michael here?"

"I'm sorry, no, Michael's on a different shift."

"Is there anyone male here?"

"Mr. Spencer, what's the problem?" She looked at his monitors. "You need to calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."

"I can't. Get out, please, I . . ." He shook his head. "I can't –"

"What's going on here?" Henry demanded.

"Dad, make her leave!" Shawn exclaimed.

"Shawn, what's wrong?" his father asked.

"I just can't. She's . . . she looks like . . ." He shook his head. "I want a male nurse."

"Oh hell," his father muttered. "Miss, can I talk to you outside?"

Shawn pulled the covers up over his head as they left, utterly humiliated. Why was he having a panic attack over a nurse? She didn't even really look like Sonja, but the thought of having her close to him . . . she had scissors in her pocket. He realized that he was shaking and he wanted to hit someone or something.

He heard footsteps again and pulled the covers down. It was his father with a grandmotherly woman wearing a stethoscope. He had a mild flutter of alarm, but nothing like the earthquake of terror that Jeanine had engendered. "What seems to be the problem, Mr. Spencer?" she asked.

"I told you what the problem is," his father said irritably.

"You told me what you think the problem is. Mr. Spencer?"

Shawn took a deep breath. "I can't . . . I don't . . ." He shook his head. "What do they know, Dad?"

"Not enough, apparently," Henry said.

"What am I allowed to say?"

"Young man, I can't provide you with proper attention if you won't let my nurses near you. They've been checking you over for days now, and –"

Shawn felt a chill of cold sweep over him at that thought. "Oh God, this is . . . this is wrong! I'm afraid of nurses."

"It's a perfectly natural reaction, Shawn," his father said.

"There is nothing natural about being afraid of nurses." He ran images of nurses through his head and found himself shaking still harder.

"Mr. Spencer, if you don't calm down, I'm going to have to sedate you."

"Did my dad tell you anything of what happened to me to bring me here?"

"He mentioned a few things, and said that was why he thought you were reacting this way."

"Well, listen to him, because I don't think I can . . ." Shawn shook his head. "Dad, what is wrong with me?"

"It happens, Shawn," Henry said, walking over. He turned to the woman. "Look, I know this probably sounds weird, but could you find some way to get mostly male nurses to look in on him? He's . . . I told you enough of what happened that –"

Shawn swallowed and beckoned her over. "You know I was attacked by a woman?" he said. She nodded. "Well, she told me she was a nurse, and that meant she knew how to stab me so that I wouldn't die right away. Then she . . ." He shuddered and it hurt. "She started out by sticking the knife in really slowly . . . really, really slowly, and . . . and she kept telling me not to move so I didn't kill myself too –"

The grandmotherly nurse stuck her hand out to stop him. "It's all right, Mr. Spencer, I understand."

"No, you don't . . . Jeanine looked like her for a second when I woke up. I really, really want male nurses, and you have no idea how weird that is for me."

"Oh?" she said, tilting her head.

"I like girl nurses!" Shawn exclaimed.

"I see," she said. "I'll see what I can work out. In the meantime, I don't seem to be causing you trouble."

"You . . . you make me think of a grandmother."

"Then let me look at you, all right?" Shawn nodded reluctantly, and she got to work, then left. Shawn lay back, breathing hard.

"My God, Shawn!" his father said in a low voice. "I . . was that –"

"She didn't start the sudden stabbing until you were awake to see," Shawn said. "Before that . . ." He felt sick to his stomach. "I think she thought it was kinder to do it slowly."

The door opened, and Shawn turned his head. He hadn't realized that the door was closed. "Mr. Spencer?" Chief Vick said a moment before she came into view.

"Chief!" Shawn said cheerily. "Good to see you. Did you bring me something?"

"Not this time, Mr. Spencer," she said with a sympathetic smile. "I'm actually here to get your statement."

All the cheer that Shawn had experienced at the welcome change of subject the chief represented drained out of him. "Oh." He gulped. "Now?"

"Do you feel up to it?" she asked in a tone that suggested he really needed to be.

Shawn closed his eyes. "I guess," he said. "Dad, could you . . . go somewhere?"

"What, Shawn?" he exclaimed. "No!"

Shawn opened his eyes. "I'm not twelve, Dad," he said. "Please?"

His father looked angry and worried, and Shawn looked away. "Henry?" Chief Vick said. "Detective Lassiter is waiting in the hallway with some follow up questions on your statement."

"He can wait," Henry said flatly.

The chief got a stern look in her eyes. "Mr. Spencer, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

There was a long silence while the two of them glared at each other, his father angrily, Chief Vick with a certain professional determination. "Fine!" Henry gave Shawn an anxious look that Shawn pretended not to see, then left the room.

"All right, Mr. Spencer," she said, pulling out a pad of paper. "Please start with leaving the station."

Shawn lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Well, McNab led me out to his cruiser, which had been parked across the back end of my motorcycle because someone apparently didn't trust me not to leave the station even though I'd promised not to," he said, then waited to see if she would respond.

"Continue," she said without a break in her professional demeanor.

"McNab drove me home and let me out in front of the stairs to my apartment. I went upstairs, opened the door, but the light bulb was out. Did you find out what was up, because the switch was on?"

"We can discuss any questions you have after we're done here, Mr. Spencer," she said with a hint of reproof. Right, she knew as well as he did that he knew proper procedure.

"Okay," he said. "Well, I tried to leave the door open, but it fell shut before I reached the switch in the living room and I felt something moving behind me. I dodged and it didn't much help. She hit the top of my head which knocked me into a cabinet." He reached up and touched the bandage over that cut. "Then I felt an injection in my left cheek."

"Your buttock?" she verified, and he nodded. "Are you sure it was the left?"

"Chief!" he expostulated.

"It matters, Spencer," she said.

"I wouldn't have specified if I wasn't sure," he grumped.

"Very good," she said. "Go on."

He let out an exasperated sigh. "The next thing I knew I was waking up to the smell of lavender. I couldn't move very well, so I figured I was with Holly." Chief Vick's eyebrows went up. "She likes her lotion and her games," he said with a reminiscent smile. "In any case, I muttered something and my dad yelled at me, so that woke me up quick."

"I can well imagine," Chief Vick said dryly.

"I was tied into a chair, a rolly chair, and my hands were cuffed together in front of me. Dad was about ten feet across from me, tied into another chair. My feet weren't tied, but his were, and he seemed to be attached to the ground. He asked me how I got caught, and she came in to tell him I'd put up a better fight than he had." He shrugged, and grunted. "He bitched, and I made some snarky remark about how it wasn't a competition. That's when she started going on about how he'd 'cheated' and framed her stupid son. She made to introduce herself, but I told her I knew who she was, kind of trying to throw her off balance, but she was already so off balance that it didn't matter."

"I see."

Shawn licked his lips "I started trying to . . . you know, flirt with her, try and get her to like me. Not to . . . I just figured she might not hurt me if she . . . and maybe I could convince her not to do anything to my dad, but . . ." He shook his head and looked out the window.

"Sound strategy," the chief said. "So, go on."

"It didn't matter. She already liked me, I got the impression. Nothing I said made any difference. She had already determined that she had to kill me. Liking me just made it sad for her in a weird way, and it made her madder at my dad. He was making her kill someone she liked. It was just all screwy."

The chief wrote for a few moments, and Shawn could see a wrinkle in her brow that hadn't been there before. It took her way longer than he would have expected to ask him to continue, but ask she did. "Please, Mr. Spencer, go on."

"She had set some popcorn going before I woke up, so the microwave beeped and she went off to get it."

"Popcorn?" the chief interjected, sounding startled.

"Yeah, she made some stupid comment about how the thing you're waiting for always happens when you start something else. So, while she was gone, I tried to figure out a way to get us loose. I pulled my chair over to my dad's but he couldn't reach any of my knots, and I couldn't reach his. He could get into my pocket, so I gave him his pills, for all the good that did."

"It takes time for that kind of medication to work, Shawn," Chief Vick said unexpectedly, and Shawn looked over at her. "It was a good thing to get it to him, but after he missed a couple of doses, one dose wouldn't be enough to prevent a seizure. I think the doctors said it may have lessened the severity."

"Oh. Great." He sighed. It was a dilemma. If he'd had a more severe seizure, she might have stopped to check up on him since he was supposed to live. But Shawn really didn't ever want to see his father have a more severe seizure. Life sucked sometimes. "Well, anyway, she came out after I'd got the other pill put away and separated us again. She pulled down that chain thing from the ceiling, with the hook on the end, and looped it around something on the chair to hold me in place. She commented that she should have tied my feet while I was unconscious, but that there was no use crying over spilt milk." He looked over at the chief. "If there was a contest for the creepiest use of a proverb, Sonja Durnstable is a shoo-in."

"Hmm," Chief Vick said with a sympathetic smile, and then she waited.

Shawn took a deep breath. His ribs protested mildly. "So then she started babbling about how Dad framed her perfect little boy and screwed up his life and . . ." He shook his head. "And she said that justice called for an eye for an eye and a son for a son." He didn't look over at her. He wasn't sure how she'd look, and he wasn't sure which would be worse, the calm professional look, or sympathy. "So, I kept trying to convince her that there had to be another way, but she just said she'd give us five minutes alone and left." He shook his head. "There was nothing we could do. We couldn't get away, and Dad seemed to be convinced that I didn't know what she wanted. He just kept trying to say it out loud, and I really didn't want him to go there." He shivered, and Chief Vick leaned forward to pull his covers up.

Shawn looked at the blanket, then over at the chief. "It is so easy to tell that you're a mommy now," he said with a grin that he was afraid didn't conceal his emotional reaction to her gesture.

She patted his shoulder gently. "I just want you to relax so that you can finish this now. We can take a break for a few minutes for you to –"

"I'm not honestly sure it would help much," he said. "You came in on the tail end of a freak out." Her eyebrows went up. "I'm afraid of nurses. How screwed up is that?"

"And you're in the hospital," she said. "I can see –"

"No, just female nurses," he said. "Guy nurses are fine."

She blinked at him, and at that moment there was a knock on the door, then it opened and Shawn heard McNab's voice. "Chief, there's a nurse here who wants to check on Shawn."

Shawn stiffened, and the chief's eyes widened. "Is it a male nurse or a female nurse?" she asked.

"Male," McNab replied, sounding puzzled.

"Come in."

Shawn relaxed, and then Michael came around the curtain. "Hey, Shawn," he said with a smile. "I hear you asked for me." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Of course, Michael," Shawn said, fluttering his eyelashes. "You know I want you."

"Promises, promises," Michael replied as he got to work. The chief's eyes had widened even more by now, and she excused herself. "Who's the pretty lady?" Michael asked.

"The chief of police," Shawn said. "Don't worry, she's not competition."

Michael laughed and finished up the checks. "How's your pain?"

"I'm good," Shawn said.

"I knew that," Michael said with a wink and left. A moment later the chief came back.

"How are you feeling?"

Shawn shrugged, and then bit down on the groan that movement threatened to elicit. "Fine," he said.

"All right, shall we continue?"

"Where were we?"

"She'd given you five minutes alone."

Shawn swallowed. "Yeah. Well, she came back with a box and set it down on the chair. She took the hook thing she'd attached to my chair off and I tried to get away. I mean, I knew I couldn't get away, but I was trying to drag things out a little. I mean, I knew you had to know something was wrong, and you already knew about her, so I figured you'd be on the trail sooner or later, and I was really hoping sooner, so . . ." He stopped. "Babbling?"

"I'm afraid so, Spencer. Do you need more –"

"So!" Shawn interrupted. "I knocked my chair over and half knocked myself out again, which made it easy for her to get my feet tied and hoist me up vertical. She talked some more, and if you want exact details of what she said, I'll write it all down later, okay?" She nodded. "Then she put on a pair of studded gloves and treated me like one of those man-sized punching bags." He looked out the window again. "I can't believe they say she only broke two ribs. I'd have sworn she smashed them all."

"Can you describe these gloves more clearly?" the chief asked.

"I don't know. I think they were cloth, with metal chunks all over them. Nasty looking."

"Did she say anything before she started?"

Shawn grimaced. "I told her my mother was here, and she said 'justice can be painful. That was just before she hoisted me up. Then dad tried to confess to his 'wrongdoing' but all she said was that it was a good breakthrough. It didn't change anything. Then she . . ." He shrugged. "Then she hit me. A lot. When she finally stopped, she offered me some sympathy and walked away again, leaving us alone. Dad tried to apologize but I told him to shut up. She came back and offered me something to drink." He shook his head. "You have no idea how freaky it was. She was all quiet and sympathetic, but she kept saying that justice had to be served. She gave me water, then she went and got her knife, and that's when Dad had the first seizure."

"What did she do about it?"

"Nothing. She said it was a . . . an absence seizure or something like that . . . and that it wasn't serious." Shawn grimaced and turned his gaze firmly back to the ceiling. "Do you know how I do it?" he asked.

"What?" The chief leaned closer. "Mr. Spencer, what are you talking about?"

"The psychic thing, since you say you know. Do you know how I do it?"

"Well, your father always seemed to pick up on things that no one else could see right off," she said.

Shawn snorted. "Yeah, well, he taught me to see everything and remember everything. Sometimes that seriously sucks, because I just can't forget things."

"I can see where that would be a drawback."

"She said that she was a nurse, and that meant she knew how to stab me so as to not kill me right away, and she told me not to move so she wouldn't kill me too quickly." He took a deep breath. "Then she carefully chose her spot and started pushing."

"You mean she stabbed you, don't you, Mr. Spencer?"

He shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "She just pushed the knife into me . . . really slowly." He clenched his jaw, trying not to remember how that had felt, how it had looked. "Dad was just staring, blinking, and the blade just kept going in. Then she pulled it out again and I asked her what the point was when Dad couldn't see." He realized how bad that could sound. "Not that I wanted . . . I mean . . . I just thought she . . ."

"It's all right, Mr. Spencer," Vick said, and Shawn looked over at her inadvertently. Her eyes were warm with sympathy. He looked away.

"She cut my shirt off so Dad would be able to see easier when he woke up. I . . . I couldn't keep still at first when she started to do it again, and it . . ." He shook his head. "And she told me to hold still, to pretend it was a doctor . . ." He took a deep breath. "When my dad woke up, he yelled, and we both jumped." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chief Vick give a sympathetic wince. "He yelled at her for sticking a knife in me, and she yanked it out." He gulped "After that, the slow thing was over with. She started just jabbing it in. And then . . . then Lassie and Jules showed up. Lassiter told her to freeze and . . . and she put the blade . . ." Shawn shook his head. "There was no thought in my head. I just froze and waited for what was going to happen. The only thing I could have done would have killed me. She made some wacko speech, and then Jules shot her."

The chief had further questions, and Shawn answered them, and as he did so he realized that at some point, unless Sonja took some kind of a deal, he was going to have to testify to all of this in court. "How is she?" he asked.

"We still have more to talk about, Mr. Spencer," the chief said, and he had a feeling he wasn't going to get much more from her on the subject of Sonja Durnstable.

"Like what?" Shawn asked.

"How are you?" she asked.

He shrugged. It was getting a little easier to do that without pain. "I got beat up on, stabbed five times and now I've had surgery twice. You do the math."

"I actually meant . . . how are you taking it?"

"I'm afraid of nurses," Shawn growled. "My dad seems to think he's to blame for some bitch hacking on me. Other than that, I feel just great. I mean, why shouldn't I?"

Chief Vick drew her brows together. "Shawn, you –"

Shawn decided this interview had gone long enough. "I'm getting tired. I don't think I can talk anymore."

She sighed. "Very well. I'll come back later to make a personal visit, Spencer."

"Look forward to it, chief," he said with a realistic sigh. He settled back to pretend to go to sleep, and the next thing he knew, he could hear a conversation between his parents that seemed to have been going on for awhile.

"– just makes sense!"

"I don't want to intrude, Henry."

"It's only an intrusion if I feel it's an intrusion." His father paused. "I won't be able to manage him on my own, Helen. They say it could take weeks for my dosage to be back to where it was. I can't risk going into a seizure when Shawn needs me."

"Fine, Henry, but I am certainly not putting you out of your bed."

"It was our bed, once," his father said in a lower tone. "You're the one who said we should stay friends."

"I sincerely doubt it's the same mattress, Henry."

"No, the mattress is new, but it's the same bed, the same room . . . the memories are still there . . ."

"Awake now!" Shawn said. "TMI."

"Shawn, are you ever going to grow up?" Henry demanded.

"I thought we'd established by now that the answer is no," Shawn said.

"Shawn!"

Shawn smiled. Things were getting back to normal – if he ignored hearing his father flirt with his mother.

* * *

"Okay, Shawn," Gus said, settling down in the chair next to the bed. "I have everything ready for an evening of fun. To start with, I brought you a big pineapple slushy." Shawn grinned and took it. "Second, I brought you Fruity Puffs."

"You rock, man!" Shawn exclaimed.

"And third . . ." Gus paused and picked up the remote. "They let me plug in my personal DVD player and I brought the whole season of _The World's Next Best Swimsuit Model_ , so we can watch it all before tonight's finale."

"The finale's tonight?" Shawn asked, appalled. "How could I lose track of that?"

"And . . ." Gus said with a flourish. "I brought all of the latest season of _NUMB3RS_ to leave with you."

"Dude, you so rock!" Shawn said. "You are the best friend a boy could have." Gus looked pleased at that. "You even beat a dog."

"Thank you, Shawn. Now, shall we get down to business."

"Absolutely. Ashley is so going to win."

"My vote goes with Melody," Gus declared.


	6. Chapter 6

Shawn hated this convalescence thing. He was walking so slow that his mother had gone on ahead to open the door for him and she was being forced to wait an amazingly long time. "Sorry, Mom," he said. "You know, you could go sit down for awhile and I'll just give a shout when I get to the door."

"It's fine, Shawn, don't worry so much."

"Yeah, Shawn, ignore the turtles that are whizzing past you," his father said, walking by with bags they'd packed from his apartment and all the fun medications he'd been gifted with at the hospital.

"Thanks, Dad," Shawn said.

His father disappeared into the house and Shawn kept up his slow progress. Abruptly, Cindy Alligeri appeared at his elbow. "Hi Shawn!"

"Hi Cindy."

"Why are you walking so slow?" she asked, as Shawn stopped, looking down at a small lift in the sidewalk. Eight little cuts in his belly and he suddenly couldn't lift his foot more than a quarter inch off the ground.

"I'm not feeling so hot," he said.

"Is Henry back?" she asked.

Shawn nodded, steeled himself, and took the next step. "Yeah, he is."

"Cindy!" called a voice from next door.

"Mama, Henry's back!" the child yelled, then scampered up to the door. "Who are you?" she demanded of Shawn's mother.

"My name is Helen. I'm Shawn's mother."

"You're not the mean lady," Cindy announced.

"I should hope not," she said, giving Shawn a puzzled look.

Shawn's dad appeared at the door. "Well, if it isn't my favorite little girl! How are you, Cindy?"

"I'm fine." She tilted her head. "You look a lot better now than when the mean lady hit you," she said.

Shawn stopped moving again, staring, and Henry squatted in front of her. "Did you see that?"

Cindy nodded. "She slammed your head in the car door and then stuck something in your butt."

"Oh my God," Shawn's mom murmured.

"I got to go talk to the pleece," Cindy said importantly, and Shawn couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Tective Laster. He gave me this and said I was an onery tective."

"I'll say you're an ornery detective," Henry said with a chuckle, taking whatever it was she had in her hand and looking at it.

Stephanie Alligeri showed up at Shawn's side. "Is she bugging you guys?" she asked, clearly assuming that Shawn was just standing in the yard.

"Not so much," Shawn said. "Did she really see my dad get grabbed?"

Stephanie nodded. "A Detective Lassiter said we were a real help. I identified the woman she saw. Is your dad okay?"

Shawn nodded. "He's fine." He shook his head, stunned that Lassiter had taken the testimony of a five-year-old. "Wow."

"Did we make a difference?" Stephanie asked.

Shawn shrugged, manfully concealing how much discomfort the gesture called. "Detective Lassiter is kind of a stickler, so if he gave her a badge, he sure thought so."

His father stood up from where he'd been talking to the little girl. "Stephanie, bring Cindy back tomorrow and I'll have cookies for her," he said.

"Sure," Stephanie replied. "Come on, Cindy."

His father walked over as the Alligeris left the yard. "Are you stuck, Shawn?" Shawn sighed and started forward again. "Do you need help, kid?" Henry asked.

Shawn sighed. "Can you make the sidewalk completely flat?" he asked plaintively.

"I've tried."

"Then not really." He stayed by Shawn's side, though, all the way up to the house. Shawn saw Stephanie watching and wondered what she thought. Once they were inside, his parents sat him down and started fussing. After a couple of minutes, though, he'd had enough. "Quit it!" he growled. "I just want to sit here and watch some TV." He grabbed the remote and started surfing.

A picture of his father in uniform on a local news channel caught his attention. "– ry Spencer, former Santa Barbara police officer and his son Shawn Spencer, sometime psychic consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department." The picture of his father was joined on the screen by a picture of him. Shawn scowled. It wasn't a very good picture. "Shawn Spencer was released from the hospital today, one week after Santa Barbara police rescued him and his father from a warehouse where they were allegedly being held prisoner."

"Allegedly," Shawn muttered. "And I'm allegedly in pain, I suppose."

"Sonja Durnstable, the alleged kidnapper, was arraigned today and pled not guilty to the crimes of kidnapping, assault and attempted murder. She has claimed that former Detective Spencer faked evidence that caused her son, one Robert Durnstable, to be convicted of rape in 2001 and sent to prison where he was later stabbed to death in a fight. In other news . . ."

"Dad!" Shawn yelled, but as he turned he discovered that his father was right behind him.

"I heard, Shawn."

"Damn it," Shawn growled. "Now they're reporting her crap like it means something."

"It does mean something, Shawn."

"What?" Shawn exclaimed. "Dad! That's crazy talk."

His father shrugged. "It's part of the case," he said. "Over the years I learned that anything that was part of a case was fair game for the press."

"It's stupid!" Shawn started to get up to pace, but his body foiled him and he sank back down. "Dude, this really sucks!"

"It's no big deal. I know it's not true, you know it's not true, and the police know it's not true." His father sat down in the chair catty corner to Shawn. "Don't take it so seriously."

"There are people, stupid people, who will buy into crap like that."

"There always are, Shawn. You can't worry about that."

Shawn scowled at the TV screen despite the fact that there was a truly adorable weathergirl pointing at low pressure zones. "Apparently, I can," he said.

"Well, don't. It's not like she's accusing you of anything."

"No, she's accusing my father, and that is not okay with me."

"Touched as I am, Shawn, I –"

"That's enough, both of you." Shawn's mom came into the living room and handed Shawn a glass of juice. "I'm not interested in mediating your ongoing father/son struggle," she said. "Shawn's concerned, you're not, enough said." She looked down at both of them. "Where's the blender, Henry? I mean, I know why you moved the glasses, but I can't find anything in that kitchen."

"Helen, it's not that difficult. I just organized it logically." He got up and they both went into the kitchen, grousing.

Shawn glared at the TV screen and flipped the channel to ESPN News, where he was guaranteed fun and also guaranteed no imbecilic local newscasters looking for headlines. He was in the middle of Gametime when his father came back and sat down, handing him a bowl of chips. "You know, Shawn, I know all your press so far has been positive, but you're going to have to toughen up. One of these days, the relative of someone you put behind bars is going to be pissed. That's just the way it is."

"Dude, that's happened. They've tried to kill me!"

"In the long term, Shawn," Henry said. "They'll say things you can't refute."

"Oh, I can refute them, Dad," Shawn replied with a grin. "I'm not a police officer. I can go on Oprah."

"Even you can't –" His father broke off, staring at him.

"I so can!" Shawn declared. "I go on the show, wow the audience, schmooze Oprah, pretend I've read some of the books from her book club, and they'll look like total idiots." His father stared at him, looking appalled, and Shawn sat back, grinning, and returned to watching TV.

"Helen, I'm really not sure we should have had kids," his father said several minutes later, and Shawn looked up to see his mother sitting down with them with some kind of greenish juice.

"Why not?"

"I'm really not sure it's safe."

"Yeah, Dad, villains everywhere, beware. Shawn Spencer's on the case."

Henry rolled his eyes, and they all watched ESPN in silence for a few moments. Then Shawn's mom cleared her throat. "You know, Shawn," she said slowly, "I think you might be a little hard on Detective Lassiter."

Shawn's eyes widened, and he stared at her in shock. "Only because most of the time he deserves it," he replied. "You don't know Lassie, and his performance on this case may have been exemplary, but that should in no way be generalized to all his cases."

"Shawn, the man saved your life," his mom exclaimed.

"Actually, it sounds like Juliet and little Cindy Alligeri saved my life."

"Shawn!" His dad shook his head. "Detective Lassiter was the lead detective on this case. Cindy might have provided evidence, but Lassiter is the one who interpreted it."

Shawn grimaced irritably. "You know, this really sucks. I did absolutely nothing on this case."

"This wasn't a case," Helen said. "This was a family crisis. Let me tell you, arriving in Santa Barbara to find both of you missing was a complete nightmare."

"I told you not to come," Shawn said, and he knew from the drop in barometric pressure that he'd said the wrong thing. "I mean, I just . . . I didn't know I was going to get grabbed. I didn't even do anything wrong this time."

"This time?" his mother repeated.

Shawn blinked at her, feeling trapped. "Jello?" he suggested. "I think the doctors have okayed me to have Jello."

"Don't change the subject, Shawn," she said. "This time? Henry?"

"Hey, I've told you everything I know."

"I really want some Jello," Shawn said, and he started to get up, but once again, the myriad cuts on his belly made him sink back. "This sucks. I can't even flee properly."

"Good." His mother glared at him. "What do you mean, 'this time'?"

"I've never actually been kidnapped before, Mom," Shawn said placatingly. "Honestly. I mean, a couple of people have shot at me, one chick grabbed me and held a gun to my throat. She was actually trying to kidnap me, but –"

"What?" His mother looked at his father with fire in her eyes. "Henry?"

"I didn't tell you about that?" he asked. "The FBI psychic?"

"No, Henry, you didn't. Shawn?"

"Sounds like Dad's been giving you great information. I wouldn't want to interfere with that –"

"Talk." When his mother took that tone, there was no point in resisting.

"She was kind of wacko," Shawn said. "And not very smart. I mean, she was investigating a counterfeiter, fell for him, then he double crossed her and she killed him. I exposed her and her wad of cash just before she and her law-abiding colleagues got on a plane. She drew a gun and tried to get me onto the plane with her, but her plan was foiled by the quick thinking of a sixty-year-old stenographer."

"Was that before or after you had sex with her?" his father asked sarcastically.

"Mildred?" Shawn exclaimed virtuously. "I never touched her!"

"Not the stenographer, Shawn, the psychic. Lindsay whatever."

"You had sex with a woman who tried to kidnap you, Shawn?"

"Before she tried to kidnap me," Shawn expostulated. "Before I was even sure she was a criminal. I'm past thirty. Why this sudden interest in my sex life, Mom?"

"Well, it sounds as though you're choosing dangerous partners, Shawn. Any mother would be concerned."

"Is there any possibility of a safe exit from this conversation . . . one that maintains my manly dignity?"

"I don't think so," his mother said, and he leaned his head back against the chair.

"I've been stabbed!" he protested.

"So?"

"More sympathy?" Shawn suggested. "Less mockery?"

"This isn't mockery, Shawn," she said. "But it can wait till later."

"Good." He could only hope that later would morph into never.

* * *

"Shawn, I'm really not sure this is a good idea," Gus said, looking around nervously.

"You're never sure anything is a good idea," Shawn replied. "Some of our best cases have come out of moments when you told me it wasn't a good idea." He looked around too. His father wasn't in view, and he knew for a fact his mother was off having lunch with an old friend and wouldn't be back for hours.

"And those were the times when we got shot, Shawn!"

"Shot at, Gus. Shot at. There is an important distinction there. My mother can fill you in on it later."

"Why are we doing this again?"

Shawn's real reason would not pass muster with Gus, he knew that. "The criminal element of Santa Barbara cannot be allowed to imagine I'm this easily disposed of," he said importantly. "Besides, I think my dad is discouraging visitors."

"Your dad is not discouraging visitors," Gus said.

"Maybe not on purpose, but he even bored Lassie." He looked at the car. "Gus, I thought I told you to open the door first."

"I did, Shawn. I –"

"Boys!" Shawn closed his eyes at this cheerful greeting from his father. "What on earth do you think you're doing?"

"Getting some fresh air," Shawn said. "And now that I've had some, I'm going back inside."

"No, Shawn, if you want fresh air, let's get you some fresh air, but I think you'd be more comfortable on the other side of the house." Sighing, Shawn allowed his father to guide them back to the porch where they all sat down in chairs overlooking the beach. "Gus, why don't you go get us some lemonade?"

"Sure, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn watched Gus go with a feeling of abandonment. "So, Shawn, where were you really going?"

"Does it matter?" Shawn asked.

"Sure it matters. I want to know what could lure my son out of the house when he's only been out of the hospital for three days."

"Nothing is that alluring . . . except maybe Holly . . . but if it was that I wouldn't invite Gus along."

"So, where were you going?"

Shawn scowled. "Away from the Stepford parents."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well . . ." Shawn shook his head. "You're being all . . . nice to each other. It's kind of creepy."

"We fight all the time."

"Yeah, but nicely." Shawn shrugged. "I don't know how to explain it, but it's creepy."

"So you wanted to get away for awhile?" Shawn nodded since the truth of that was pretty much out there. "How about if we go away for awhile, would that help?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, I'll give it some thought. How about a game of chess, now?"

"You mean the game with the horsies?" Shawn asked.

His father scowled at him. "Yes, I mean the game with the horsies."

They played for awhile, and Shawn enjoyed razzing his dad about the names of the pieces and how the game worked, all the while beating the pants off him. He got a little tired after awhile and let his father play Gus. That actually was a little fun to watch . . . they were evenly matched.

Eventually, his mother came home. She didn't give his dad a kiss, but that was all that was lacking in her greeting.

After a few minutes' contemplation, his father made a move in the current game, then said, "Helen, our son thinks we're being too nice to each other and wants to get away."

"Shawn, you can't go out right now," she said. "Don't be silly." Shawn sighed.

"Actually, I had an alternate solution," Henry said, and they all turned to him. "I thought maybe you and I could go out to dinner tonight, and leave Shawn with Gus." Shawn blinked at his father. Had he lost his marbles?

"Out to dinner?" his mom asked, raising an eyebrow. "Where did you have in mind?"

"Chez Paul's. I have an in with the maitre d'. What do you think?"

"Sure, I'll just go make sure I've got something ready to wear." She winked at his father and left, and Shawn shook his head.

"How is taking Mom to the best date restaurant in town going to help, Dad?"

"We'll be out of the house, Shawn," his father said. "I'd better go check on my suit."

"Gus, I think they're trying to kill me," Shawn said.

"What's so wrong with them getting to be friends again?" Gus asked.

"If they get to be friends again, they'll start ganging up on me. I've had my parents on different coasts and different sides of most issues for fifteen years now, and I like it. If they start teaming up again, I'm in trouble."

"You'd love it," Gus said.

"Would not."

"Would so."

"Would not."

"Would so. Shawn!"

"What Gus?"

"Oh, never mind." He started putting the chess pieces away.

"What are you doing?"

"If you think I'm going to let you trounce me at chess the way your dad does, you've got another think coming."

"Then what are we going to do while you're babysitting me?"

"I am not babysitting you."

"Are so. I guarantee that my parents wouldn't leave unless someone was here to stay with me. You are my babysitter." He grinned. "You have to tell me scary stories, feed me way too much junk food, then tuck me into bed."

"I've done all that before, Shawn. Except the tucking. I am not tucking."

"You have to," Shawn said. "It's in the job description."

"I'm ordering pizza."

"And then the scary stories, and then the tucking."

"There will be no tucking, Shawn."

Shawn tried to get up, but discovered that his muscles had stiffened in the hours he'd spent in this chair. He sighed. "Will there be helping inside?" he asked.

"Are you going to stop insisting on the tucking?" Gus demanded.

"Fine, Gus, you don't have to tuck me in." He grimaced with embarrassment. "But I'm honestly not sure I can get up alone."

"Of course, Shawn."

Gus helped him to his feet and Shawn abruptly clung to him. "Hold me, Gus!" he cried.

"Excuse me!" exclaimed Stephanie Alligeri, and they both turned to see her by her garbage cans. She blushed and went inside.

Shawn started to laugh, but the act was painful, and this was compounded by the fact that Gus let go and marched inside. He toppled and had to catch the door frame to hold himself up.

"I can't believe you did that, Shawn!" Gus hissed. "Now she thinks we . . . eeuw!"

"She thinks we eeuw?" Shawn repeated. "Gus, you're the vocabulary man. Eeuw?"

"You know what I mean, Shawn."

"Half of Dad's neighbors already think that, Gus," Shawn said. "Old lady Mertz thinks I do it with just about anything."

"Shawn, what are you doing?" his father asked, coming into the living room.

"Gus abandoned me on the threshold," Shawn said pathetically.

"What did you do to him?" his father asked, walking over to help him the rest of the way into the living room.

"Oh, I just convinced Stephanie Alligeri that we're gay."

"That wouldn't take much. She already asked me if you were a couple."

"You're kidding!" Shawn huffed. "If I was gay, I think I'd choose someone with a little more . . . I don't know, muscle?"

"Thanks, Shawn," Gus said sarcastically. "I think I'd choose someone with a little more depth."

"Well, boys, I'll leave you to your fun. Helen? You ready?"

She came downstairs wearing a really pretty dress that Shawn had never seen before. "Don't keep him up too late, Gus," she said. "And don't let him eat too much junk."

Shawn grinned up at him. "Still think you're not a babysitter?" he murmured, and Gus glared at him.

"I'll do my best, Mrs. Spencer," he said.

Shawn watched his parents go, then said, "Okay, Gus, call for the pizza, and then call for a stripper."

"I am not calling for a stripper, Shawn," Gus retorted.

"Spoilsport. Fine, then let's have ourselves a horror movie night."

Gus grinned. "How about this, I'll get the movies, you call for the pizza."

"What movies, Gus? You know all my dad has are westerns, cops and robbers and war movies."

Gus straightened his shoulders, looking proud of himself. "I brought my collection, Shawn. I figured we might need them sooner or later."

"Dude, you totally rock!" They shared a quick fist bump before Gus handed him the phone and went to find his movies.

* * *

Helen awoke late in the night to the sound of whimpering cries in Shawn's bedroom. She was on her feet and halfway there before she was completely awake. Unlike during Shawn's childhood, when she got to Shawn's room, she found Henry already there. "Shawn!" he called softly. "Shawnie, wake up."

Helen stopped in the doorway to watch. Shawn didn't wake up fully, he rarely had when he'd had nightmares as a child. Henry soothed him back to sleep, then turned around to sneak back out of the room. His eyes widened when he saw her, and she held up a finger in front of her lips, backed out silently and followed him down to the kitchen. "He woke you, too?" he asked while she went to the fridge and poured them each a glass of cold milk.

"Of course. I'm just surprised it woke you."

"It always woke me, Helen, I just figured you were better equipped when he was younger," Henry said.

"And now?"

"And now, frankly, I'm not used to having you in the house."

She chuckled and sat down with him at the kitchen table. They were silent for a few moments, then she cleared her throat. "Is that all, Henry? No deeper explanation?"

"What do you want me to say, Helen?" he asked harshly. "That watching my son get tortured has awakened a spark of concern in me? I've never not been concerned, I just . . ." He shrugged. "Shawn understands."

"No, actually, I don't think he does, at least not all the time." Henry grimaced and looked away. Helen leaned forward and put a hand on his. "I think he will, if he ever does have a child of his own." She sighed with a smile. "You Spencer men. Such a pain in the ass."

"Whatever," he growled.

"Well, I'm going back to bed, and I think I'll have a chat tomorrow with Gus about his movie choices."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you see the boxes next to the DVD player when we got home?" she asked softly. "They had a horror movie fest while we were gone, and I think some of them may have come a little too close to home for Shawn tonight."

"You know it was probably Shawn's idea," Henry said, and Helen shrugged.

"I have no doubt, but where Shawn's well being is concerned, I can usually persuade Gus to exercise his common sense."

"Well, then, maybe you should also chat with him about taking Shawn out of the house. They were halfway to the car when I stopped them."

She nodded. "I'll add it to the list."

* * *

Lassiter stared at the memo he'd received and resisted the urge to crumple it in his fist and throw it in the trash. This had better not go through. They needed to put that evil insane creature behind bars, not in a hospital.

"What's wrong, Carlton?" O'Hara asked.

"What's wrong?" he repeated. "Durnstable's lawyer is trying to have her declared legally insane – says she can't help him prepare a meaningful defense."

"Based on what?"

"Based on her claims that she did nothing wrong, that she was only acting in the name of justice delayed, whatever that's supposed to mean."

O'Hara stared at him. "Oh God, that . . . that could maybe fly if she got the right shrink and the right judge."

"The DA is requesting any and all information we have that could discredit the claim, O'Hara, so don't talk like that. I need to take this to the chief."

"Of course."

"And she'll have to decide who gets to tell the Spencers."

O'Hara looked a little sick at that thought, and Lassiter grit his teeth irritably. The chief had a long-standing relationship with the family, but she was also under pressure right now to get the Smolensky killing solved. If Spencer hadn't been taken so firmly off the duty roster, Lassiter knew he'd have been called in. The net result was that the chief might not have the time to go to the Spencers' place, and he was reasonably certain she'd want the news passed along in person. Besides, to fulfill the DA's request, they might need more specifics of just what she'd said, and for that they'd need Spencer, the only one who'd been conscious for the whole span of the attack.

"Yes, detective?" Vick said as he stepped into her office.

"This came from the DA," he said, simply handing her the memo. He watched her eyes scan it, then go back and read it more carefully. She put it flat on the desk and looked into the distance, clearly calculating priorities, work loads and responsibilities.

"Detective, I'm going to have to ask you to go speak with the Spencers and let them know about this development. Review their statements quickly before you go. Only ask them further questions if it seems necessary."

"Are you sure it should be me, chief?" he asked. "The last time I spoke to Spencer –"

"Just don't take out your list and you should be fine," she snapped. "Get to work."

He nodded and went back to his desk. Copies of both statements were still in his personal files so he pulled them out and read them through. Then he tucked them back into their folders and picked up a pad of paper. He was going to have to ask for elaboration, and he wasn't happy about it.

"Do you need company?" O'Hara asked.

"You've got work to do here, O'Hara," he said, and he knew his tone was a little harsh. He softened it slightly. "Otherwise, I'd say yes."

She nodded and returned to her work. Lassiter went out to his car and drove to the Spencer residence. He really didn't look forward to this conversation.

* * *

Shawn woke up from an entirely unintentional nap when there was a knock at the door. He took a deep breath, pulled himself together and before he could even get up, he heard the door open. Sighing, he relaxed.

His visitors had picked up in the last couple of days, but most of the people who weren't on shift at this hour had been by recently, so he wasn't sure who this could be. He heard voices in the kitchen, then footsteps by the door to the living room. "Shawn?" his mother said quietly.

"I'm awake," he replied irritably. All this tiptoeing was getting on his nerves. He didn't need to sleep half the day away, really.

A moment later, his mother, his father and Detective Lassiter came into the room, and Shawn wondered what was up. Lassie had been avoiding him like the plague since his list of rude remarks had sent Shawn back into surgery. From the file folders, the note pad and the grimmer than grim expression, Shawn guessed this was work.

"Tell me you've got a case you need my help with," he said with a grin, rubbing his hands together. "We wouldn't want my skills to atrophy from lack of use."

Lassiter's face tightened, and he sat down at Shawn's mother's urging. "I'm afraid not, Spencer," he said. "We can solve cases without you and your psychic pyrotechnics."

"Whatever you say, Lassie," Shawn said, disappointed. What, was he just on his way home? Then why the files?

"This has to do with Sonja Durnstable," Lassie said, and Shawn kept his face impassive with a massive effort. "I need to tell you all something about the case, and ask a few more follow up questions."

"Tell us what?" Shawn's father asked.

"Her defense attorney is petitioning to have her declared unfit to stand trial," Lassie said, and Shawn blinked. There was no doubt in his mind that she was a few Fruity Puffs shy of a bowl, but he didn't think she lacked the mental capacity to stand trial. "The chief thought you'd want to know, and I've got a few questions for clarification."

"Questions for who?" Shawn asked.

"You, actually," Lassie said, glancing uneasily at his parents. Clearly he'd already told them, but was nervous regarding their reaction.

Shawn swallowed. "Okay. Mom, Dad, later." Not without great reluctance, they got up and left the room, and Shawn turned to Lassie. "Please tell me you're not harboring guilt feelings still about that stupid laughing thing," he said.

"Guilt? Me?" Lassie shook his head and Shawn could tell he was lying through his teeth. "Not a chance."

Shawn sighed. Nothing to be done about it. "Good, so, your questions?"

"You said she was sympathetic, can you be more specific about what she said?"

Shawn shrugged. "I told the chief I'd write it all down for her, but I haven't really had the chance." Lassie still seemed intent. "She said a lot of stuff, Lassie. I can tell you she knew what she was doing was wrong even if she kept saying it wasn't."

"How so?"

"She apologized for it. You don't apologize if what you're doing is right, do you? And she spent a lot of time justifying it."

Lassiter looked thoughtful. "If you were given access to a laptop, could you write down what she said?"

Shawn shrugged. "I could try. Not sure how long it would take, and there's no way I'm going to dictate to anyone in this house. I really don't want my mom to know any more details than she has to, or my dad for that matter. He knows more than enough already."

"I suppose you could come down to the station."

"That sounds great!" Shawn said eagerly. Finally an excuse to get out of the house. "Let's go!"

"Are you sure you're up to it?"

"Absolutely," Shawn said. He inched forward in the chair. "Could you help me up?"

Lassiter looked down at him. "Are you still milking this pathetic thing?" he asked with an irritable glare, but he bent to offer Shawn an arm.

"Milking?" Shawn exclaimed. He shoved Lassiter back. "I have seven holes in me," he said, pulling himself forward by the arms of the chair. "And two broken ribs." He pushed himself up, forcing himself to stay silent as he rose. He took a deep breath when he was on his feet and tried to psych himself up to move.

"What are you doing, Shawn?" his father demanded.

"I'm going to the station," Shawn said. "They need my help on a case."

"You are not going down to the station," Henry said. "You can barely stand up."

"I need to give them some information," Shawn said. "And there's this case."

"Is that true?" his father asked Lassiter. "There's a case?"

Shawn turned towards Lassie with pleading in his eyes. Lassie cleared his throat. "Actually, there is a case that he might be able to help us with, but this is really about getting what information we can to stop the travesty of justice that Durnstable's attorney is planning."

"Surely you can do that without leaving the house," Shawn's mother said.

Shawn closed his eyes. "I really want to go out," he said quietly, not caring for the moment that Lassiter could hear him.

"Well, then, we'll –"

"I think Lassie can handle it," Shawn said, looking over at his mother. "Really."

"He's fine, Helen. Let him be," Henry said, and Shawn shot him a grateful look.

Despite his earlier sarcasm, Lassie walked close beside Shawn all the way out to his cruiser. He opened the door and made sure Shawn got inside and was properly belted in before going around to the driver's side and starting it up. Shawn waited till they'd been on the road for a few minutes and said, "Thanks."

"Thanks for what?"

"I know there's no case, I just thought there was a chance that the work ethic thing would get my dad thinking in the right direction."

"It seems to have worked."

Shawn snorted. "Not a chance. That was a reaction to my mom's fussing."

"Your mother has a reason to fuss, Spencer. You know, you have eight holes, not seven."

Shawn glanced over a Santa Barbara's head detective and gave him a slight grin. "You're right. I'd forgotten the second surgery."

"I hadn't."

"For pity's sake, Lassie, it wasn't your fault," Shawn said irritably. "According to the doctors you saved my life." Shawn looked out the window. "Again."

"O'Hara saved you. I just distracted Durnstable long enough to let her get into place."

"And that counts," Shawn said. "And every not-dead cell in my body thanks you both." He chuckled. "So, was Cindy Alligeri as much help as she seems to think she was?"

"She was, actually," Lassiter said. "Fortunately, I don't have to put a preschooler on the witness stand. Your father can testify to nearly everything she saw."

"If it comes to trial," Shawn said diffidently.

"Oh, it will come to trial," Lassie declared firmly. "We'll see to that." Shawn grimaced. "Wait, Spencer, don't you want it to come to trial?"

"Have you read my statement?" Shawn asked, and Lassiter nodded. "If it was you, just how eager would you be? First you get up in a little box in front of a judge, a bunch of lawyers, fourteen citizens and whoever decided to show up that day. Then you swear an oath that you'll answer every question you're asked about it, so the prosecutor does his best to pull out every scrap of information that makes you look as pathetic and victimized as possible. Then, you're faced with a potentially hostile lawyer who'll ask questions designed to elicit things that will help his client." Shawn shook his head. "I want her to go away for the rest of her natural life but . . . I wish there was a way that didn't involve me going on record with every rotten thing she did."

Lassiter was silent for a few moments. "I hadn't considered that angle." It was on the tip of Shawn's tongue to say that that would take an imagination, but he decided that riding Lassiter could come later. When he had a little more energy. "Spencer, are you sure you're up to this?"

"Not really, but my parents are acting like newlyweds, and I can't stand watching my divorced parents bill and coo like kids. Having both of them here is enough to make me run screaming for the hills. For one thing, they keep ganging up on me, and Mom's influencing Gus. I know it."

"This too shall pass, Spencer," Lassiter said. "This too shall pass."

* * *

When the reached the station, Lassiter helped Shawn up the steps but then the younger man pushed him away, disdaining further overt help. Respecting his wishes, Lassiter stayed close enough to catch but not close enough to hover.

Even on the steps people had stopped to ask Shawn how he was. When they got inside, people kept coming up as they crossed the squadroom. Lassiter was ready to smack them for the simple repetition, but Spencer vanished from his side suddenly, and he turned around to find the man trying to climb onto a chair.

Lassiter hurried up beside him. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded in an irate undertone.

"Ah, good, Lassie," Shawn said, putting a hand on Lassiter's shoulder and using him as a support to get the rest of the way up on the chair. He shifted his hand to Lassiter's head once he was up on the chair. Lassiter reminded himself that hitting him was against the police code of conduct and would be rude besides. "Hey, everyone!" Spencer called, and Lassiter noticed a slight wince. Supporting that volume couldn't feel good on those stitches and cuts. The work of the police station ground to a halt, and people in areas that weren't immediately connected to the squadroom came in. "Hi, it's good to see all of you, too. Since people keep asking, I thought I'd tell you all once. I feel super neat-o keen, and am really enjoying the time off. As one of my more memorable acquaintances used to say, I'm having more fun than a clown on fire." With this dubious statement, he smiled at them all.

"Well, good," Chief Vick said. She'd arrived in time to hear some if not all of Spencer's announcement. "Now then, everyone, back to work." The crowd dissipated and the chief walked over to Spencer. "I've got something for you to look at if you can cut into that time off a little for me."

"I'd be delighted, chief," Spencer said. He looked around. "I'm just not really sure how to get down without dissolving into manly tears and embarrassing everybody."

Lassiter beckoned at McNab who happened to be passing and Spencer gave him a look of surprised gratitude. Between the two men's shoulders, Spencer managed to lower himself without too much in the way of obvious pain. Lassiter had no doubt he was concealing some. The man had proven to be a wuss when it came to small things in the past, but he remembered his complete stoicism and refusal to accept limitations after the motorcycle wreck.

Lassiter explained why Spencer was there in an undertone, and they got him over to the desk of one of the sergeants where he proceeded to narrate a terse description of what had been said during his captivity. He did stipulate that his memory might not be exactly accurate, but that he would try to note when he thought he was paraphrasing. Lassiter felt they couldn't ask for more and left him to it.

The next time he noticed Spencer, the man was slowly hobbling into the chief's office where he shut the door behind himself.

* * *

"Yes, Mr. Spencer?" Chief Vick said. "Have a seat."

Shawn lowered himself gently into a chair. "Thanks, chief. How are you on this fine day?"

"Dandy. I'm a little surprised that you came in. I sent Lassiter to you."

"And I didn't want to give a detailed accounting of everything the charming Sonja said where my parents could hear me," Shawn replied. "Dad heard enough directly, and Mom knows more than enough. They can both wait for the trial to hear more."

The chief nodded slowly. "I see. Well, did you have something you wanted?"

"Yes. I wanted to know what to expect. If you know I'm not psychic, what does that mean for my job?"

She tilted her head. "I knew you weren't psychic when I hired you, Spencer," she said. "Especially after I talked to your father."

"He ratted me out?" Shawn guessed.

"On the contrary, he gave me a logical and reasoned account of how you had developed the abilities the minute you were on the other side of the country with your mother. And I've known him for seventeen years and didn't buy a word of it, but if he was confirming the ability, it meant that there was something there. If he'd thought you were really playing at it, he wouldn't have done that."

Shawn blinked. "Okay. Moving on, what does that mean, chief? I mean, you've watched me prance around your office and pull wilder and wilder tricks to get my point across . . . do I –"

"Oh, you still have to do that," she said with a smile. "Admittedly, there are moments when I wish you would just cut to the chase, but I need an excuse to keep you on the payroll. You're undisciplined and refused to work within normal procedural parameters."

"So, I can't be a consultant if I'm not psychic?"

"You'd need something, Shawn," she said frankly. "You have a high school diploma and a string of fascinating but totally unrelated jobs and not much else. I couldn't justify hiring you without a . . . a –"

"A gimmick?" Shawn hazarded with a grin.

"If you call a degree in psychology or criminology a gimmick, then yes," she said with a shake of her head.

"No, I call those pieces of paper," Shawn replied, and Vick raised her eyebrows. "So, you said you had a case?" he asked hastily.

"As long as you can manage one of your 'flip through the file and find a miracle' jobs, yes. You're not going anywhere near the field, and I'm sending you home as soon as you're done." Shawn nodded soberly. She seemed to see right through his docility. "And I decide when you're done," she added. "Ready?" He nodded and she picked up the phone. "Lassiter, bring in the Smolensky file, please."

Shawn leaned back. Everything was going to be fine.


End file.
